


You taste of sunshine and sound of rain, things I'll never see again

by Ladyboo



Series: Tuning Forks and Human Kisses [1]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: AU, Blind!Jim, First Time, M/M, im so not a musician, mentions of noncon underage, vaguely glazed over
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-07
Updated: 2015-04-06
Packaged: 2018-01-23 23:26:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 13
Words: 44,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1583264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladyboo/pseuds/Ladyboo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All Spock wanted to do was practice on the grand piano, he had a schedule after all. Dinner with Nyota every other day, so she could discuss how she and her Doctor friend were doing, and then practice at 6 every afternoon. Except, there was a man playing on his stage, during his time, and everything sort of went downhill from there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Edited and re-posted, because I have a beautiful, wonderful woman who likes to help me be a better writer~

By his standards, San Francisco during the winter months was crisp on its best days... with rare days of sunshine and rain that fell rather than snow. The days were short, and it was a strange occurrence that the sun would shine, but he would take a private pleasure in it every time it did. The nights were long, cold and dark, and the climate controls in his home were turned up high, past what any Terran would find comfortable. Still, he could feel a chill.

The curved tips of his ears were barely covered, by a cap that had been knit with a painstaking attention to detail.  He could still catch a hint of his mother's favored perfume against the organic fabric. Light, airy and subtle, it tickled at his sensitive nose and he resisted the urge to tug the cap down further upon his head. Instead, he dipped his face down by 5.82 centimeters, the tip of his nose pressing into the soft wool that constituted his sweater. Handmade and of high quality, just as the hat, the color was a delicate shade of redwood, and the waffle rib stitches were as tight as they were warm. Allowing himself a moment of indulgence, his eyes closed for 2.4 seconds...  long enough to conjure up the image of her soft sable eyes, her warm smile and the expression on her face as she handled the fresh yarn.

Around him, the air was a crisp 11.4 degree Celsius, and he curled his fingers a little tighter in the privacy of his pants pockets. Insulated with a layer of thermal threads, that had been meticulously interwoven into the yarn stitches, he felt as close to comfortable as he could be without the climate control settings of his home. His mother would be proud of herself, to know how her craftsmanship had held up against the January day, and he made a mental note to Comm her before he retired for the night.

The path to the symphony house wove through a quiet environment; set on the north side of town it was nestled into the trees and the hillside that overlooked the bay. Away from the hustle and bustle of ‘Starfleet Academy of the Performing Arts’, the atmosphere was peaceful. Feeling his shoulders relax by .8 of an inch, he shifted the messenger bag upon his shoulder, the syntho-leather housing his personal PADD.

Movements measured, he took the thirty-three stone steps with ease, scaling them in a matter of seconds with his long strides. Old, even by Terran standards, the building before him loomed heavily, constructed of red brick and dark wood finishing.  The windows gleamed, wide and arching in the setting sunlight. Hands extracted from his pockets, they pressed against the grained surface of the heavy entry door, made of the same wood as the rest of the finishing and formed into an arch high above his head.

Stepping inside, dry air greeted him and his shoulders relaxed further still at the heat of it.  Having already been programmed into the buildings controls, the time that he was expected for private practice had resulted in the temperatures being raised five minutes before his scheduled arrival. Content to shut the cool San Francisco air behind him, he moved himself out of the way of the heavy door, and let it seal shut behind him with a huff of air.

The air in the symphony house was still around him, the atmosphere in the grand entryway undisturbed by his presence. Inside, despite the dark wood accents, the building was light, the walls painted a soft shade of butternut, accented by various pieces of artwork and empty frames that would house theatrical posters when there was a performance. Walking over floors made of the same hardwood as the doorways and trim, his shoes tapped quietly against the grain as he made his way up the great staircase. Tucking his knit cap into his satchel, slender fingers smoothed down the traditional cut of his hair, righting any strands that had clung with static.

Moving up the stairs with ease, he flexed his fingers, joints relaxing in anticipation. His lectures had been trying today, educational but dry, and he had found himself less enthralled by the prospect of new knowledge than usual. No matter, he knew he would feel better once he settled his fingers on familiar ivory keys and let himself relax under a melody or two.

Silently, the door to the auditorium opened for him, and it was instantly called to his attention that the quiet in the rest of the symphony house had been a falsehood, created by the elaborate soundproofing that had gone into the building. Brow furrowing, he listened to the jarring, unexpected tones, hesitating still for one fourth of a second before shutting himself into the room with the sounds. Quietly creeping forward, eyes adjusting first to the darkness, then to the bright lights upon the stage, he found the source of the noise.

Tones low, rich and full, he recognized that the instrument in the man's hands was a viola; singing with a tone larger and deeper than the shrill sounds of the violin that he was used to hearing. At the first notes he would have mistaken the man for Nero, as no one else had the audacity to encroach on his private practice sessions other than the Romulan, but there were none of the usual features upon the man's flesh. His hair was the color of wheat; golden blond and bright with sunlight, waving around his head in loose curls that clung around his ears and collar. Skin a deep sun tanned gold, it appeared unblemished from what he could see at this distance, and he didn't notice that he was slowly drawing closer. A white t-shirt, hardly formal enough for the symphony house venue, stretched across his pectorals and the strong curves of his deltoids and biceps. Faded grey jeans encased his legs, the material looking scuffed around the knees and frayed about the pockets, and his feet were alarmingly bare upon the stage floor.

Stopping short, not far from the stage, Spock looked at the strange man with some horror for his lack of hygienic forethought.  More alarming even, aside from the man's bare feet and his lack of suitable attire, was the manner in which he played. The tune was unrecognizable, nothing that Spock had ever heard played on a stringed instrument before, and he was most certain that such an instrument wasn't its original purpose. The tone was quick, layered in a way that was astounding to hear played upon anything other than a piano, and the more forefront notes of it held a sort of lyrical value to them.

And the man was dancing.

Before, he had witnessed how stringed instrument players would sway their bodies with the motions of their bows. Gentle, subtle shifts of weight, tips of their head or furious sawing motions with their hand, but those were things that were expected. Before him, the golden man had his head tipped down against the viola, as was usual, and his fingers were firmly wrapped against the bow, but that was where the similarities came to an end...

His bare feet were dancing in a set of motions that had him gliding across the floor, a drag of the ball of his foot to give him an extended form as he drew out a note, followed by a swift turn up onto his toes as he strained the viola to its highest pitch. Body dipping, turning, gliding across the floor, he seemed completely unaware of his actions, and at peace. The bright lighting from the flood lights cast a glow across his being, and he seemed to vibrate with a sort of pent up energy as he played.

Enthralled, Spock stood still, back straight and one hand curled loosely around the strap of his satchel. Minutes passed, and the melody that the man played dragged into something deeper, the tempo slower though the tune of it was no less foreign. The next one was much in the same, nothing he recognized, as was the one after that, and he felt his fingers clenching around the strap of his satchel before he could curb the action. Listening to them, it was obvious that the tunes weren't meant for the delicate stringed instrument, yet the young man played it with casual ease, as if it were a child's toy.

Swirling around, he put himself in the air, bare feet landing back on the stage with a thud, and he caught a glimpse of their black bottoms. Behind him, gleaming ebony and ivory in the bright floodlights, the grand piano stood resolute and alone, and the bench was still pulled out at the angle at which he had left it at the day before. This destined time had been allotted for him, an hour set aside for his own practice by the owners of the symphony house, yet the unknown man played his viola with a chaotic grace and danced about as if he didn't have a care.

He found himself unable to object; too distracted with watching the man, instead, the curve of his lips and the way that his body moved with a dancer’s ease that Nyota would have envied.

Quietly, unwilling to intrude even though he was the one who had been intruded upon, he let himself out of the room, attempting to catalogue the airy feeling in his chest. There was a sort of excitement there, coursing through his nerve endings and causing him to pause in his motions. Door sealing shut behind him, Spock’s brow furrowed, looking down to his fingers as if they would explain the sensation to him.

Illogical. Surely. Just as it was for him now to turn back and look at the door panel with an imploring look. Never before had someone intruded in his life in such a way, inserting themselves into his schedule as if there was no error in the action. The dancing man had done just that though, had dropped himself right down into the carefully planned out time table that the Vulcan had.

Staring at the door for another moment, as if that would allow him to see the dancing musician, Spock strained his ears in a way that he would never admit to publicly, attempting to hear more of the lilting music. There was nothing, not a note or a thud, and he took that as his sign to leave.

Perhaps Nyota would be amiable to a cup of spiced tea, and an explanation as to the strange sensation in his chest…

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Songs Jim played: Roxanne, Baba O'Reily, Free Bird and American Woman  
> In my head, Spock is the boy who wears handmade sweaters from Amanda. It started out as a way to appease her when she first started making them and they were horrible, but now he feels slightly naked if he isn't wearing one.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta'd by a beautiful woman who is so much cooler than me it isn't fair. Alas, she's decided to be my friend, and that's good if nothing else! Sorry this took so long sweethearts, enjoy! And comments of all types are welcome!

The walk from Spock’s home to the symphony house was accomplished in a pleasant sort of silence and he felt almost isolated from the outside world.  Around him, the air was calm with only the occasional minor disturbance from an animal, or the wind, rustling through the trees. It was a comfortable day; as comfortably mild as January in San Francisco could ever be, and he felt content.

The scent of his mother's perfume was tangible to his nose once more, permeating from the delicately knitted diamond stitch that his mother had been working on at the last Terran Christmas holiday. The fabric was a rich purple color, mulberry to be exact, in its hue and… she had said that it complimented his skin.

The previous week had passed with no other incident to disrupt his timetable.  Everything had gone exactly to schedule with two exams for his technical courses; new pieces learned for his performance classes; and every other afternoon spent in the pleasant company of Nyota and spiced Vulcan tea.

The air inside the symphony house was warm, dry and far more comfortable than that which was outside and, with careful fingers, he plucked a leaf out of his hair.  Dry and brown, it turned to dust, crumbling under his touch, and he watched with a raised brow as it fluttered to the floor. Then, after 3.2 seconds of watching as the pieces fell, Spock righted the satchel on his shoulder and took the grand staircase with practiced ease. His steps echoed slightly, the soles of his shoes clacking quietly against the clean swept floor, and his hands remained by his person as he took the stairs at a moderate pace; the same businesslike one that he used for everything, effectively saving time and energy that would otherwise be wasted.

The building was quiet around him, melancholy in its echoing state, and he settled into the same ease of mind that he always felt within its walls. Still, the large frames that soon would hold theatrical posters for the upcoming ballet recital were empty and there was an air of expectancy about the place. Nyota had been talking about it all morning, her slender body dancing and twirling around his kitchen as she gathered the ingredients for their lunch.

Exhaling, pressing a hand to the door for the auditorium hall, Spock paused with pointed ears straining to pick up a sound.

There was nothing though, just the same, echoing silence that the rest of the symphony house held. A faint rumbling sound from the air vents, the quiet hiss from the oxygen purifier, but there was nothing more, nothing to give him any doubt that he was indeed alone. There was no way to explain the disappointment he felt at that revelation so, instead, he filed it away for later to discuss with his mother during their nightly conversation.

Hand still pressed to the cool surface of the door, it swept open under his touch, and the silence around him was shattered.

Before he could help himself the corners of his mouth lifted, and a surge of unexpected satisfaction overcame him, at the sounds presented to him. Sharp, sudden pulls from the viola's strings and, while the tune was something he had no chance of ever recognizing, it was a refreshing thing to hear in its strangeness all the same. It was an interruption to his schedule that he found himself glad to embrace.

Moving forward with sharp, precise movements, Spock kept walking until he was nearly level with the stage, neck craned slightly to look up at the golden man. And he was indeed just as golden as he had been the last time, with his wheat hair curling lazily and his skin warmly tanned. A pale green shirt hung off his shoulders, too large on his slender frame, and faded blue jeans were rolled up to display the delicate, shifting bones in his ankles. 

He was barefoot, again, the dancing viola player with his strange tunes and his fluid movements.

Nyota had heard about him, in the first response that had been given by Spock when she'd asked about the sudden change in his plans.  Spock knew that she referred to him as a 'creature of habit' and it was a well-known fact, among their acquaintances, that he preferred to keep to a schedule. And he had talked for a fair number of minutes, he knew that, (3.5 to be exact) which was in itself peculiar behavior for him to display.  He never talked about people for extended periods of time, felt no need to join her in her habit of gossip. Nyota had been intrigued though, and amused, judging by the curve of her mouth and the slant of one thin eyebrow. She'd curled herself to sit comfortably in the curve of the pseudo-leather embrace of his couch, watching him over the rim of her steaming cup, and had listened as he had talked the entire time…

She'd proceeded to laugh at him then, when she'd asked for the golden man's name and Spock had been startled to say that he didn't know.

Now, he was barefoot, and with one sweeping motion his leg extended into the air, accompanying a slow turn as he drew out a low note from the taut strings. Already his feet were stained, dirty, dark things, and Spock wondered how long the man had been here, how long he had been dancing and playing in this very fashion?  Had he encroached on someone else's playing time as well, or was it simply Spock's slot that he was intent to take?

"May I inquire as to what you are playing?"

Sharply, the lulling heavy-hearted sounds turned into something else entirely, and the hypnotic notes ended with a screeching sound as the bow jerked violently backacross the strings. A yelp left the man's mouth, his startled eyes opening wide and when his feet hit the ground, it was at the wrong angle entirely. Spock watched with a guilty sort of horror as the man's body crumpled, arms wrapped tight around the instrument and his weight twisting so that he landed on his back, the viola safe against his chest.

Hands occupied, there was nothing to cover his head where it cracked against the stage floor with a resounding thud, and Spock was levering himself up onto the stage just as the man stopped moving.  Hands fluttering briefly, hovering over the other’s form, he could see his breathing then, the controlled rise and fall of his chest. With it, he could see the tight grimace of pain on his features, plush mouth pressed thin and the skin around his eyes puckered tight.

"I did not intend to startle you and I will take full responsibility for any injuries you have sustai-"

"Please, jus'… stop talkin' for a minute."

His voice was a slur, words spoken past clenched teeth and a tight jaw, but they were words all the same. His voice was clearer than Spock had expected, holding no real accent to it and instead, the tones were simply there, just as lulling as the sounds from his viola had been moments before. Still, silent, he carefully wedged a hand under the man's head, deftly feeling for any injury of the sort.

"Damage's already done, not gonna find anything new."

"What?"

His eyes were electric.

A brilliant, glacial sort of blue that succeeded in stealing his breath from his lungs. In his side, Spock's heart began to thump wildly, and he couldn't seem to control it even when he tried. He'd never seen a human with a gaze like that, so vibrant and full, and it was astounding, fascinating even.

"I'm blind. Traumatic brain injury when I was nine. It's, umm, extensive optic nerve damage, open Stellate Basilar Skull Fracture, so it's not – ow!"  He winced, those brilliant eyes shutting once more and Spock watched as the human pulled his bottom lip between white teeth for a breath. He spoke the words as if he had been reciting them for years; the clinical feedback of what ailed him, the damage that had already been done. "Hitting the stage a bit too hard won't do anything worse to me."

With the mention of it, he could see it now, the unfocused glaze of those bright eyes when they opened. They didn't truly meet his own staring off, instead, at one pointed ear, and even that they didn't see.

"Kaiidth."

"You're Vulcan."

Using his hand behind the man's head, Spock eased him up into a sitting position. He could feel it then, the rough texture of scar tissue and its star burst pattern. The base of his skull was littered with it, the soft curve there made harsh to the touch by the puckered skin. It could be felt through the fine, waving hairs there, and Spock took a private moment, mortified and embarrassed by his own lack of self control, to familiarize himself with the scarred skin, regardless of the man's words.

"Indeed."

His solemn mouth turned up into a smile then, and while it seemed impossible, it brightened everything about him. From the golden cast of his skin to the bright blue of his eyes, no matter how unfocused, everything was alive with the same sort of energy that Spock had seen before in the faces of dancers. Nyota, when she practiced by dancing around his kitchen or when talking about her doctor boyfriend that she met in one of her technical classes. Gaila, when she stretched out on his living room floor with composition paper in her lap as he painted her toes, crooning in her sultry alto tones about her engineer friend. That same sort of brightness, except where theirs were no more than fleeting emotions this man's were bright, blistering off of his skin in a rush of excitement, of content and curiosity so alive and fierce it made Spock's own skin burn.

"I'm Jim. Kirk. Jim Kirk, it's nice to meet you and uh, sorry for taking your slot, assuming that's what I did."

Every nerve in his arm seemed to be alight with sensation that he usually denied himself. Such emotion, such brightness, and it was tantalizing, tempting, the whispering glimpses that it offered him of what the man's mind would be like. Just as golden no doubt, just as bright, and every flush of emotion he felt was a burning thing across his skin.

"It's quite alright. You may call me Spock."

A faint frown, and his hand was still on the back of the man’s - Jim's - neck. Thumb sweeping gently over the puckered cluster of scar tissue, the swirling hum of emotions was both dizzying and exhilarating all at once, made even more so by the private manner in which he sampled them. Despite his cultural boundaries, Spock found himself unable to pull his hand away. Instead, his fingers rested against the strong curve of flesh, and he let himself gaze upon the other man for a moment in unabashed observation.

His mouth was wide set, with a pouting bottom lip and a smiling curve to the top corners, even when they were pulled down with an emotion that could be called sheepish. There was a simple sort of content happiness that pulsed from his skin, despite the tumble he had taken and the obvious dull pain that Spock could feel through the surface contact. The viola was still cradled in his arms, as if it were an infant in need of protection and affection, and Spock watched as his fingertips slowly and idly caressed up and down the neck of the instrument.

Careful, mindful of the pain that he could feel through their minimal contact, he kept his hand on the back of Jim's head and neck as he eased him further into an upright position. Once safely balanced though, Jim made no move to remove his hand from his skin, and it was with a surprising amount of will that Spock had to force himself to cut off the contact.

Without his hand on the other man's skin, his nerves suddenly felt cold, and his fingers curled around themselves to try and displace the feeling.

"Once more, may I inquire as to what you were playing?"

By comparison, the smile that had previously been on Jim's lips seemed dull, not as wide as the current one, and less heartfelt. Now, his hands gripped at the instrument a little tighter, and his sightless eyes darted around wildly in his excitement, occasionally landing on Spock before they came to rest off of his elbow.

"A rendition of 'Play The Game Tonight', it's an old Terran rock classic."

"Interesting. I was unaware that such pieces had been arranged so that they could be played on symphonic instruments."

There was pride there, then, so bright from the younger man that he could feel it in the air without even having to touch his golden skin. He watched with intrigue as Jim rocked from side to side on the floor, as if his excitement caused the motions, and he leaned back to avoid his head when it jerked forward.

"It hasn't. I've been working on it for the past week; I have a couple of other ones, too. My dad evidently loved the original stuff, because he had recordings of them stashed in the private terminal that mom never got rid of after he died. I used to listen to them for hours, and when I picked this up I wanted to keep trying them. I worked up from the early 1960's, and I'm in the late 1980's right now, but I don't dare go into the 90's. Things got weird there."

Considering the younger man for a moment, the pride in his voice and the excitement on his face, Spock gave a curious glance down to the instrument and the way he held it once more.

"Fascinating. Would you-"

"Kid! The fuck yer on the floor for?"

Irritation, unexpected and sharp, coursed through Spock as a different voice cut through the cool air of the auditorium. Turning his head, he caught the outline of a reaction as Jim perked up at the sounds, fingers tightening on the instrument and his bare feet sliding to push himself up to his knees. There, halfway up the ramp already, and gaining on them, was a wide shouldered brunette man with a heavy scowl pressed into his features. He was hardly impressed with the situation, the human that Spock suddenly felt was intruding, the human that he suddenly wished to remove from the room completely and – he was surprised to understand that this was a sentiment that he shared with the other man.

"I tripped, Spock accidentally startled me, and I-"

"Hit your fuckin' head, didn't you? Christ, kid, I can't leave you alone for one Goddamn minute, can I?"

Spock watched with a carefully blank expression as Jim slid forward on his feet, confidently approaching the edge of the stage. The moment he realized his intention though, Jim had already dropped off the edge, instrument still wrapped tight in his arms, and Spock watched with widened eyes as the other man quickly caught the blonde before he hit the ground. One arm was banded around the man's middle, the other bracing around his shoulders, and yet Spock kept a careful eye on the two, even after those bare feet had safely touched the floor.

"Fuck!  Where are your shoes, Jimmy? And your jacket, did you lose that too?"

The other man took the instrument, tucking it away expertly into the case that sat on the edge of the stage, tucking the bow in beside it before latching it tight. The case was taken up instantly, the handle jangling as it took the weight of the instrument, and the brunette flicked his gaze up to stare then. Assessing, just as he had been assessed.

"I…maybe? My shoes might be in my lecture, still. I dunno, Bones. And I think I left my jacket with Sulu this time, or Scotty. Probably Scotty,"

His hand – Bones’ hand, because 'Bones' was evidently a proper name for a man in his twenties to have, hopefully a moniker of some sort - took Jim's, making the other man's look small as he wrapped the musicians fingers around the skin just above his elbow. From there, he gave another look at Spock, having barely looked away at all since Jim had started talking, and his eyes narrowed to slits for a moment before he gave him his back. And then he was taking Jim with him, guiding the golden dancing musician down the ramp.

"There were these circuits cuz he, Scotty, was working on another lab for something, and he didn't have the light board to be able to see what did what an' if all the things were workin', right? So we decided that I'd be a pretty good tester, and it was really cool, because I would get a different amount of shock to my fingertips based on what kind of switch he was using at the time, along with the wires and the power source. One of the times, he used this thing that shocked me so much we thought I pissed myse-"

The door slipped shut behind them and sealed itself in place before Spock even really knew it was happening. Then, he sat on the dirty, black floor of the stage where he had pulled himself up, as if Jim was still beside him. Carefully, he reached into his satchel for his communicator, pulling it out with habitually measured movements and listened to it chirp, eyes still on the door.

"Nyota, I believe I require your assistance on a matter that I find I do not quite understand."


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the essence of a little last minute holiday scrambling, I thought I'd post this while I wait for my eyeliner to dry! Got a giant family Christmas party to go to, that I really should be getting ready for, but, I felt like giving you all a present! No refunds, and it's non-returnable!  
> I hope you all have a Merry Christmas!

Judging by her response to his Comm, Nyota had been more than slightly amused by his predicament.  She had been concerned in the beginning; the same response that he had elicited from her when he had admitted to needing her assistance before, on some matter or another of a human nature, but that concern hadn't lasted long. Instead, she had laughed at him, a barely audible sound that his sharp ears had picked up easily over the connection and, if he hadn't known her so well, he would have felt as though she mocked him.

However, his mother had reacted much in the same way when he had made a point of contacting her that night, by Comm; he wished to discuss with her the odd disappointment he had felt when he thought he would find himself alone in the auditorium. She had done nothing to hide her own amusement. Amusement found purely at his expense because, after twenty-three years, he knew his mother well enough to know just where she found the fuel for her moods.  Her face had wrinkled around her brown eyes and her pale pink mouth had stretched into a wide curl. Quickly, she had clasped a hand over her face, but there was no hiding the way that her shoulders shook, or the soft sounds of her laughter as it filled the quiet air of his home.

Amanda had offered no relief for his confused state of mind though, but had simply given him one of the proud, pleasant smiles that she saved especially for him and, when the call had finally ended, Spock had been almost startled to find that he had learned nothing from her.

Humans had always perplexed him and his mother was no exception to that rule.  More often than not it was far easier to understand what she meant when she said nothing. There were tells she had, a quirk to her mouth or a pinch between her brows, or the way that she would hold herself, that seemed to be completely individual to his mother. Realistically, he knew these to be characteristics of all humans, unable to fully suppress their emotions, but it was often impossible to understand another’s ‘tells’ if they tried hard enough to suppress their facial expressions.

-

The practice building was usually fairly deserted around the lunch hour, with all of the sound cells left empty while students occupied themselves in the mess halls around campus, instead. The building would be filled with the quiet static sound of electronics, and the lack of any other intrusive sound made it seem peaceful in a way that it normally wasn’t.  Just the same, the soft carpet was spongy under Spock’s boots, giving a slight bounce to his steps that he didn’t feel the need to correct as he strode through the first floor.

On his left, a single human was in a sound cell as he passed just, it seemed, as she always was.  The glass door was tinted darkly and her outline barely visible. Her body was bent over the small table in the room instead of upright and Spock paused for a moment to observe her. Eyes narrowing, the slight tension in his shoulders dissipated at the steady rise and fall of her chest, signaling that her body was simply slumped over in slumber instead of unconscious for some reason other than exhaustion. Satisfied, he adjusted his bag and continued up the stairs.

The receptionist’s desk was empty, as it usually was in the noon hour, and the air around it felt cold from its lack of disturbance. As he passed, Spock gave a glance upwards to see if the lights above the elevator were still on, and a flashing light around the number four greeted him cheerily. Lips pursing, as the lift chimed happily at him to signal its arrival, Spock moved forward towards the doors.

After two exposures to it, the sound of this viola was just as familiar to Spock as the tinkling of a piano’s notes drawn from beneath his own restless fingers. The sounds were short and sharp; different than the low, drawn out sighs that the instrument usually produced, and he paused in his steps for a moment to listen, head tipped slightly.

A single sound cell door was open and bright with light that flooded from the inside of the small room. The sharp sounds spilled from there, stilted and strident in a way that he hadn’t previously associated with the instrument.

The breath he hadn’t known he had been holding seeped out quietly from between his parted lips when he stopped in front of the open door. An almost lift to his lips that he had just managed to tame into place, fighting its way to the surface once more.

The table that usually sat near the center of the little room had been pushed completely against the wall instead, shoved as far back as it could go, and its chair was stacked carefully on top of it to keep it out of the way as well. The simple electric piano was untouched, bench pressed as far underneath as it could go, and it’s cover pulled down over it to protect the plastic keys from dust and scratches that would harm them. Instead of using the furniture like any other musician would, the sturdy workspace ideal, Jim had stretched himself out on the floor, lying on his back.  The delicate body of the viola was nestled against his abdomen, resting easily on the pale pink cotton of his shirt. Slim legs were spread at the knees, the dark pants rolled up twice at the ankle, and bare toes lazily stretched toward the wall.

Most peculiarly, instead of drawing the bow across the strings in the typical manner that he had seen string player’s use, Jim’s fingers movedgreedily and plucked them with the tips, causing the sound to resonate harshly out of the small room and into the hall. His hands flew, left hand braced around the neck of the instrument and shifting to change the tones of the notes being produced. The fingertips of his right hand were red and tender looking to the touch, dancing in a flurried sort of motion that contrasted sharply with the tranquil calm that had settled over the rest of his body.

It was the first time that Spock had ever seen the man at rest and, while he was still just as aesthetically pleasing as he had been before, there was a strange burning in his side to see Jim in motion once more.

Lips parted, Jim was humming in time with the short sounds, swirling, wordless tones that registered on the recording program that shone with life on the PADD beside him. There was no defining lyrical value to the sounds, nothing that Spock could use to attempt to understand just what the tones were supposed to mean. Instead, he was simply left to listen to them, low and sweet as they were, as they thrummed from somewhere deep in the slender man’s chest.

“Do you not require nourishment?”

There had been a small bit of juvenile anticipation that the other man would startle at the sound of his voice, but Jim did no such thing. 

Head tipping back sharply, the lines of his neck stood out in sharp relief against the rest of his skin, and the tendons there shifted brightly in the white light of the room. Golden curls tangled, they fanned out on the floor around his head, and fell away from his face as glazed eyes tried to find Spock by his voice alone. Those thin fingers stopped their plucking, and with it, the shifting beams on the PADD recording system stopped as well.

The smile on Jim’s face seemed illogically bright for a person that he had only truly met once.

“Hey, Spock!”

“Greetings, Jim.”

“I’m not stealing something else, am I?”

He rolled his body onto his stomach, flawlessly transitioning the viola so that it was delicately, carelessly, placed on the carpet beside him. His legs unwound themselves with a sweeping motion, and everything about him was fluid when he rolled, bracing his weight on his forearms.

“Negative, Jim. I spend my lunch hour in a sound cell since I do not require as much nourishment as my human peers.”

“Uh huh. So you’re not busy?”

“Correct.”

The golden man wiggled on the floor, scooting his body across the soft carpet to make unnecessary room beside himself. He then patted at the spot, fingers splayed wide where they hit, and his head was still tipped up, staring out with that same content smile. Sweeping up the instrument once more, he rolled himself just as gracefully as he had the first time, lying on his back with it pillowed against his abdomen before Spock could bother to protest.

“Cool. C’mere.”

Staring down with a quirked brow, Spock pressed his lips together in a silent sigh. Carefully, he removed his satchel, placing it on the floor beside where he would sit with more care than was perhaps necessary. Then, he folded himself, legs curling as he situated himself on the carpet beside the other man. Jim seemed unimpressed though, and Spock tensed and watched as the man’s hand first patted the floor behind his back, and then sought out and pressed against Spock’s chest, pushing.

Brows lifting higher, he stared down at the hand with wide eyes, feeling the blistering heat of it against his skin, and his eyes followed the fingers up the line his arm, up until he could gaze at Jim’s face. The grin on that face was a puckish thing, curling sharply along the flesh of his cheeks and cutting dimples there. Another push, Jim knew exactly what he was doing and what boundaries he was crossing, and Spock relented, letting himself be pressed so that he lay beside the other man on the floor.

“What is the purpose of this?”

“It’s comfy.”

‘Comfy’, as the other man stated, did indeed seem like an adequate phrasing to describe the current situation. The floor underneath of his body was still warm with the heat from Jim’s own, and the air smelled faintly of the clean scent of his skin. Up close once more, and able to gaze as unabashedly as he desired, Spock took a moment to count the freckles that dotted the other man’s face and neck - forty-seven of them from what he could see - and catch the spikes of blue shades that filled the man’s eyes.

“You choose to forgo nourishment to lie on a ‘comfy’ floor?”

Those lips pressed together, and Spock was given a private audience to the snuff of laughter that made his companion’s cheeks inflate. His lips pursed, spread at the center just enough that Spock could see another freckle there on the seam, turning his count to forty-eight.

“Got to get it where I can, Spock, got to get it where I can.” 

Exhaling, the nod he gave was unnecessary, and he could hear the static sounds of his hair starting to cling to the floor beneath his head. His ear caught a bit on the fibrous strands to make it itch, but he kept his hands where they were at his sides instead of relieving himself. Instead, he focused on the way that pale golden hairs curled up into the air, swaying against gravity from the force of the electricity that transferred itself from the carpet.

Jim’s face was flushed under the bright lighting and just past his ear, against the far wall, Spock could see where a pair of shoes lay tumbled, the laces knotted and the toes scuffed dark.

“What do you play?”

Snapping back to attention, his head turned a bit on the floor, enough that he could watch the other man’s face once more.

“The grand piano. I’m part of the Fleet Chamber Orchestra.”

Eager, it seemed, Jim nodded, wiggling his shoulders as he pressed a bit closer on the floor, entire body flexing in a jittery dance of motion. Up close, it was easy to see that not a single piece of him was as calm as he seemed, for everything about him was cast in a miniature series of motion. His fingers curled idly over his viola, the knuckles shifting under his thin skin, and his eyes fluttered wildly behind closed gossamer lids. A faint tremble set itself over every extremity that he had, and his toes wormed in the thick carpet with faint scratching sounds.

“Fancy. Piano’s don’t usually make it into an orchestra, do they?”

“Occasionally.”

“Hm. So Fancy mister over here, when did you first start playing?”

Amused, illogically, a faint huff of laughter masquerading as a sigh left his lips, and Spock shifted enough that their shoulders were touching. Even through their clothes, the contact felt bright, fleeting bursts of emotion seeping through from their close proximity. Curiosity, content, humor, each of them were just as bright and sharp as the last, as it seemed that Jim Kirk did nothing by halves.

“At age three, my mother decided that a ‘creative outlet’ would be a good break from my Vulcan studies.”

The confused frown pulled down at Jim’s lips for a moment, and intrigue danced between their skin.

“Your Vulcan mother, wha - let me get this straight. Your  _Vulcan_  mother wanted you to have a  _creative outlet_?”

“Negative.”

“Excuse me?”  

Another huff-sigh, a strange feeling against his lips and nose, and Spock watched as Jim’s body grew taunt with confusion. His fingers tightened on the neck of the viola, the strings shifting under the pressure, and as a response, his chaffed fingertips pet across them, as if the inanimate object needed soothing. His eyes were open, brilliant and blue, and they landed just off of Spock’s forehead, closer than his last attempt had been.

“You leapt to an illogical conclusion due to your lack of supporting evidence. You presume, since I am Vulcan, that both of my parents share the same heritage as I.  Indeed, my father is Vulcan, just as I am, and just as his father was as well, but my mother is human.”

Silence fell upon them, with Jim’s intense gaze jittering about once more. His eyes seemed to tremble in their unfocused state, and Spock could feel the turbulence of emotions under his skin as his mind ran with its new information. Then, suddenly, his eyes widened, and he sat up sharply enough that Spock reached out with a hand to brace the viola in case it fell.

“Your mom’s Amanda Grayson?”

“Correct.”

“Holy shit.”

Straightening as best as he could on the floor, Spock kept a hand hovering over the instrument, looking up at the other man with a needlessly blank expression. Jim’s eyes were wide, and he’d twisted his body enough that Spock’s hand was necessary, and the tip of his pinky was pressed against the curve of Jim’s abdomen.

“Holy shit, your mom’s a badass! She was the first chair cellist in the Vancouver Philharmonic Orchestra, and she was supposed to get a solo run in the Terran Romantic String Orchestra. Holy fuckin-Spock, your mom turned down the best string orchestra on Earth because she wanted to work on the Universal Translator.”

“I am aware.”

“ _Spock_!”

The huff of laughter that that escaped him came out as less of a sigh, and Jim must have noticed, because his lips curved sharply again at the sound of it. His entire body was trembling, and the excitement under his skin was electric to the touch even through their clothing. Completely unbound, his emotions ran wild within his system, and they felt like fire against his skin, setting his nerves alight in a way that Spock found he craved.

Conversation fell heavy over them then, with Jim tumbling over himself as he tried to settle on which questions to ask, and Spock answering as best as he could. After the second instance of Jim nearly hitting himself in the face and losing his viola to the floor, he took the instrument himself, stretching up from his sitting position so he could secure it in its case once more, latching it safely inside. Even after that though, Jim didn’t stop moving, continuing to wave his fingers about in the air and come dangerously close to not only his own face, but Spock’s as well.

After a near swipe to his nose, his fingers darted out, wrapping quickly around Jim’s wrists to secure them back into the seated man’s lap. The effect was immediate, the contact between them more than he could have anticipated, for Jim was…Jim was _more._

His emotions burned just as Spock had known they had, but the faint touches through hair and clothes did nothing to prepare him for the way his fingers would feel against the thin skin of Jim’s wrists. Everything about him felt like the sun on the Vulcan Forge, from the sharp burn of his emotions, his excitement and his joy, to the biting edge to his intelligence. Everything within him was as golden as the things outside, and Spock felt a jolt as his  _Katra_  reached out in near desperation for the other man’s.

_T’hy’la._

Wonder was a strange feeling, awe fresh and crisp like the rare Vulcan rains that washed over the desert. Every word that was spoken slipped over his ears as flawlessly as Pre-Reform Vulcan ever did, and the image of him seemed sharp in comparison to everything else in the room. Illogical were the poetics that Spock found himself wishing to express upon the image of the man, and his fingers yearned to knot themselves within the gold of Jim’s hair so he could pull the slighter man flush against him.

Nearly two hours passed before the PADD within Spock’s satchel gave a quiet ring, drawing both of their attention. His fingers were still around the other man’s wrists, but Jim had twisted his hands around so that his own fingertips were pressed carefully on the inside of Spock’s wrists. The rough surfaces of Jim’s fingers caught, pulling at the veins and thin bones underneath his own skin, and Spock reveled in the intimate thrill of it.

“Oh.”

His entire demeanor dimmed, Jim tipping his head in the direction of the interruption. Outside of their sound cell, figures moved in blurs through the heavy tint on the door. No one paused to look in at them, no one seemed interested in the strange sight of a Vulcan sprawled uncharacteristically on the floor. The world passed them by without a single care, and the private intimacy of it was simply left between the two of them.

“Does that mean you have a class to get to?”

Indeed he did.

The lecture for his ‘Intergalactic Arts Relations’ course started in ten minutes, and he knew that the walk was twenty-one minutes at even a brisk pace. Even if he left now, there would be no chance of him making it to his lecture on time. Furthermore, the thought of Jim being left alone put a cold sort of feeling around his heart, something that left a flavor of distaste on his tongue. Watching Jim, the way that his hair fell around his face and the left over flush of excitement on his skin, Spock pressed his lips together.

“Negative, it is a programming error that I have yet to correct. Unless you have a class that you need to attend, I would be amicable to continuing this conversation at a different location.”

“Oh, that sounds a bit like a date, Mr Spock.”

Lips quirking into another slip of a smile, Spock watched as the other man gathered himself up off the floor with a fluid sweep of motion.

“Indeed it does, Mr. Kirk.”

-

That night, as he sat in front of his terminal wrapped in a large sweater and clasping a steaming cup of Vulcan spice tea, his mother for once received an answer that pleased her when she asked if he had done anything ‘exciting’ that day.

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies is this one seems a bit shorter than the last chapter, new semester, new professors and new homework, as well as a surprise that you'll all see soon enough. I wanted to thank you all for the lovely comments, and I'm so happy you're all enjoying this story, that makes me so happy~ I hope you'll comment on this one too, and I hope you enjoy!  
> Beta'd by the same lovely lady, as always.

“Spock, I can’t believe I’m asking this…” full lips were pressed together, the smooth skin between her arching brows pulled down into a sharp pucker, and the skin around the edges of her eyes was pinched.  Nyota looked troubled, her dark face clouded in a way that he rarely saw aimed at himself, and the tension showed largely in how she held her folded position. More often than not, such a dissatisfied expression was aimed at her personal PADD, with one hand tucking hair behind her ear and the other tapping away at the device, flipping through messages from Leonard or intergalactic news.  “…but are you distracted?”

His muscles were stretched in a pleasant manner, the burn that had settled through them now reduced to a subtle heat that coursed under his skin. Adopting the contorted positions his limbs had taken was something he never personally underwent, unless in the company of Nyota, and Spock tipped his head to give her his full attention.   As he watched, she flexed her toes playfully in his direction, wiggling the appendages where they hung in the air.  Instead of carefully unfolding herself from her Firefly pose, she rocked her weight on the palm of her hands once, twice, before swinging around so that her knees were lowered from her ears, and dropped her weight back to the floor.

“I apologize.  It was not my intention to appear as if I had more pressing matters than your company.”

Following her example, he first unwound his legs from where they were folded around one another in a lotus like position before shifting so that his weight dropped off of his forearms and he was able to put himself in a seated position once more. As always, the sensation of blood going from his head to his extremities was a sort of sliding rush that sent a faint trembling feeling along his muscles, and the breath he took he let out from between pursed lips, in the way that he had been taught by his friend.

“I will put forth the effort, in future, to be more present in the current situation and conversation.”

She shook her head at him then, stretching her thin arms up over her head in a sharp snap of bones and joints. The concern was still there, present in the way she pursed her lips at him, but Nyota seemed conflicted with the amusement that he could see restrained by the tension of her jaw.

“I’m not mad, Spock.” Fingers falling then, she wound them into her hair, pulling at the elastic band and untwisting it until he watched the dark locks of her hair tumble free. Their Saturday morning yoga had reached its conclusion, then, and Spock did a slow stretch to compensate for the lack of the usual cool down exercise that they took part in. “I’m simply concerned.”

“Everything is fine, Nyota.”

“Well, that’s good, but that doesn’t actually tell me anything.”

Silence settled on them then, with dark eyes gazing at one another with the same curious sort of intensity. A horrible habit, the way that he had quickly been conditioned to simply sit and allow his friend to dissect him as if she were a scientist rather than a nimble dancer. The wait never lasted long though, twenty seven seconds on this occasion, before her eyes widened, and the line of her mouth dropped open into a gape.

“Is this because of James?”

“I do not see how that is an-”

“Oh my God, Spock! Are you distracted because of a boy?” 

Bristling under her good natured prodding, Spock arranged his legs so that one was extended as far as it could go, and bent his torso to wrap his fingers around the arch of his foot. The level of delight he knew she would take from the situation would have been the cause for worry if he knew her any less well than he did, though it was still enough to send a sigh across his lips.

“James appears to be approximately twenty-one years of age by the Terran calendar, which hardly qualifies him to be labeled with the term of a child.”

“You’re arguing it wi-  Oh!  You’re stalling.” The smile that stretched her lips was a bright thing and it was both instantly, and without a doubt, that he knew she was going to be unswayed on the subject. Such was his burden and, briefly, he wondered why he had agreed to be companions with her in the first place. “You’re stalling, because you’re uncomfortable, because you’re distracted by a boy.”

Inhaling as he did, it was illogical to feel the emotional reaction that he felt in response to her teasing, but the warmth within his side was a pleasant thing that he’d grown comfortable with in the last three years.

“Referring to James as a child would be much in the same vein as if I were to call Leonard an ‘infant’ despite his standing in his medical practice.”

Lips curling, her expression then was nothing less than a pout, and Nyota rocked a bit in place.

“Rude!  Leo’s a Docto-“

“Just as James is a highly skilled individual, who has proven the ability to excel in his chosen field.”

“You make a horrible girlfriend.”

Folding his leg back into the proper position, Spock stretched his torso until he felt the shift of muscles low beneath his diaphragm.

“I would hope so, since I happen to possess a functioning penis.”  

Her foot nudged his own, then, bare toes cool against his for the brief contact before she arched herself up into a standing position once more. The air left her lungs in a huff, and Spock watched as Nyota stretched her thin body as far as it would go toward the high ceiling of his home. He followed shortly after, rocking slightly with the momentum that his motions caused before coming to a steady stop beside her.

“C’mon, cool down and then somebody owes me some gossip.”

“I do not gossip.”

“That’s not what your mother said.”  

-

It had become blatantly clear that Nyota planned to be insufferable for the rest of their day spent together, a favored past time of hers that Spock found he was rarely subjected to. Presently, he thanked his good favor, though the human ideal of ‘luck’ was not currently on his side, and his usual pleasant, quiet walk was missing one of its key elements. Regardless, he could survive without the silence, and took quiet pleasure in her company all the same. 

The air was just as crisp as it had been in the previous days, though the heavy way it clung to his skin promised rain in a manner that he had been exposed to on his first day on Earth. An unusual feeling, so uncommon on Vulcan that even with his memory, it was difficult to remember how the sensations had felt. Earth rains were a thing that he had found he enjoyed though, when the correlating temperatures were in an agreeable range.

Beside him, with her hair still free and her lips painted a brilliant plum, Nyota kept time with his less than leisurely pace in a way that only a practiced individual could.

“I fail to understand why you deem it necessary to accompany me to practice.”

Her lips parted in the very grin that had unnerved him the first time they had met, when the Waswahili woman, at the supposedly impressionable age of nineteen, had refused to take no for an answer. At the time, he had thought it to be her cultural ignorance, but the Mombasa native had quickly proven him wrong by seamlessly slipping into conversation in Vulcan. Now, he simply knew it as a facet of Nyota, with her personality that his mother adored and her friendship that he cherished.

“You’re not going to practice.” 

Taking the steps at his usual, quick pace, his companion gave a slight jog to keep up with him, though her breathing didn’t falter.

“Contrary to what may be popular belief, Nyota, it is common to practice in the symphony house, as its acoustics are most attuned to the necessary decibels that are required for optimal feedback.”

Swirling in front of him in a fan of dark hair and white wool, his companion tipped her head at him before pulling the heavy door open for the both of them. There was no use in attempting to remind her of the human display called chivalry, his words would be unheeded and his breath wasted. The only previous attempt he had made had resulted in an extensive lecture, on equality in gender roles, that he had found both highly educational and utterly unnecessary, something that he had proceeded to tell her once she had finished. The assurance that he both respected and would defend her independence, if need be, had done a great deal in placating his friend.

“Then where’s your note PADD?”

Her grin was saucy, and it was with a tip of his head in return that he chose to ignore her.

Rather, he had more pressing matters to consider, like the feeling of nervous anticipation that had once again made itself known. His muscles felt tight in a way that he could usually control, throbbing with a tension that centered on his heart and refused to cease no matter how he tried. It was rather unnerving, the reactions that Jim was able to inspire within him.

Pausing outside the auditorium door, his fingers clenched together, and he listened as his friend’s chatter quickly died down.

“Nyota, I believe I need to ask another favor of you.” 

From the corner of his eye, he watched as her eyes landed on him, and her lips pursed in a display of impatience. 

“Though I doubt I need to, I must ask that you please be temperate in your approach to James. By no means do I think he is a fragile man, but I am unsure of how he will respond to a new presence. “

Slowly, she nodded from where she stood beside him, and Spock released the breath that he had been quietly holding. Still, anticipation was a sensation that he had begun to grow familiar with where Jim was concerned, and he let himself take only a moment to pull his shields together. Then, with a fluid flip of his wrist, he pressed the button that gave them entrance to the room, and the silence was gently disturbed.

Brow furrowing sharply, the pace that took him down the ramp was far quicker than usual, but not only did Nyota not know that, but what she thought was suddenly none of his immediate concern.

For Jim was as Spock had never seen him before, with his golden waves of hair pulled into a poor attempt of a tail, and his legs folded beneath him. The white of his t-shirt was a pale thing against his skin, and it stretched across his shoulders where the younger man was hunched over on the stage. Closer inspection, once he was indeed close enough to inspect, showed that Jim’s feet were bare and blackened things, and that his fingers bore flushed tips that plucked feebly at the viola’s strings.

“Jim, is something amiss?”

There was a faint tremble across his T’hy’la’s skin, though the energy of it seemed wrong.   The glow across his skin seemed like more of a ruddy flush than the pink vibrancy that Spock was used to.

“Spock?”

Head jerking up, the tension in those shoulders tightened even further, and the sight of his face sent a deafening roar of emerald across his vision. It burned through him, turned everything into a sickly sort of dance, and it was with a dim sort of understanding that he saw Jim’s mouth moving, watched as Nyota leveled herself up beside them and spoke to the other man.

The thin skin around one of Jim’s eyes had been bludgeoned, turning an entirely human mixture of red and purple under the inflamed flesh. The eye that it encircled looked painful within it, the whites striped with red and the blue so vibrant that it was difficult to gaze upon it at all. Further down, the skin on the side of his nose was the same bright mix of colors, the ridge of his nose bent and pushed to the side at an unnatural angle. Even more still, the flesh of his mouth was torn, with his lips slicked with warm red blood and his teeth stained with it just the same. 

It was dark, just as it was wrong, all of it completely unacceptable in a way that did nothing to quell the sharp tide of murderous rage that swept through him.

Hands tightened into fists, it was then that Spock’s gaze found the snapped remains of a thin white walking cane a few feet away, a thing that he knew Jim only ever used when he was alone, and then turned upon the way that the skin upon his knuckles was just as reddened and split as that of his lip. 

It was with care that he fell to his knees beside the two of them, the gentleness in his grasp betrayed by the flush of green across his face. Nyota said nothing of it, though if she had the words were lost to him, and he watched instead as she flicked open her communicator, and the look of horror that flittered across his intended’s face.

It was with the same care that his fingertips brushed against the side of Jim’s cheek and, while a part of him reveled in the way that Jim leaned into his touch, the emotions of pain, anger and fear that he felt from him did nothing to help how he burned.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh look, chapter! Oh, and plot, there's plot with it as well! Been going back and forth with my lovely beta, who better be asleep right now I swear to god, and we got this lovely chapter! It came out to eleven pages in word, and I'm going to just place it delicately here and hope that you enjoy it as you will? I really appreciate the comments, and all the love I've gotten for this story thus far, you guys are awesome~

“Spock!  We’re supposed to take him to the clinic!”

Nyota’s voice had a thick quality to it when it hit his ears, wavering as if she spoke to him from underwater.  All the same, he heard her words as he forced away the rush of blood to his head, fought to see past the wash of emerald that coated everything.  Jim was staring out with his glazed eyes, and the red within them made Spock want to press a hand over their lids, cover and close them. That wouldn’t help anything though, that wasn’t an action that bore any logic and, instead, the hand still lying at his side clenched into a tight fist.

The fingers which were still pressed gently against Jim’s face burned suddenly with the spike of anxiety under the other man’s skin and his fingers curled then, while his body crouched further in a feral manner. The intent to protect ran thick through his veins, and it caused his fingers to sweep down to curl around the back of his friend’s neck. Jim relaxed as his head fell back into the touch, and his sightless eyes sought Spock’s in a way that made his heart ache in his side.

 “Jim, it shall be alrigh-“

 “NO! No clinic.”

 “Jim, we must…“ 

The anxiety ran deeper then, twisting in on itself, until it turned into something far more primitive and primal and it set his nerves aflame, starting within his fingers. The anger that coursed there only sharpened and grew, and his grip tightened out of reflex as Jim howled and jerked in his grasp.

“No clinic!”

There was a voice from the other end of Nyota’s Comm; he could hear it, then, the thing that she had carelessly thrown down beside her thigh.  The curse that came from it was muffled, a voice that sounded vaguely familiar, but he didn’t have time to dwell upon it as Jim fought against him. Curling farther over the slighter man, Spock tightened his grip on the back of the man’s neck, and pressed the flat of their foreheads together in a gesture that his mother had often used when he was younger, and inexperienced in how to control his emotional state.

“Ashayam. Be still.” 

He could hear Nyota talking quietly into her Comm but he kept his gaze on Jim, instead, on the way that his eyes darted about and how his bloodied breath reeked of iron. His fingers had moved to grasp Spock’s arms and, even through his long sleeved shirt, the sharp points of fingertip and nail were impossible to mistake. Jim clung to him as if he, Spock, were going to disappear and, from those sharp points of contact, he could feel the rapid beat that the man’s heart had taken.

To see such distress made his tongue curl in upon itself; a bitter taste settling in the back of his throat, utterly unacceptable.

“Nyota, Leonard will meet us at my home, I refuse to allow Jim to be put under the unnecessary distress that the notion of a clinic seems to bring. Either your lover will treat his wounds there, or I will treat them myself.”

Carefully, Spock removed the viola from Jim’s lap and placed it within its case. Latching it tight, he rattled the case enough to ensure that the instrument was secure, in the same motion that he had seen Jim make previously, before nudging the case towards Nyota. From there he stood, taking a quick moment to survey the surrounding area, but there was nothing new to be seen.

 Taking the smaller man’s hands, he moved them to wrap around his shoulders, and spoke with his lips close to his ear.

 “Hold on to me, Jim.”

Slender fingers gripped down, upon command, and Spock gave a silent huff of approval before shifting them further. Hands sliding, one arm braced around the slope of Jim’s back, just below his shoulder blades, while the other went lower still, wrapping itself under the curve of his knees.  Straightening slowly, muscles barely straining with the motion, Spock kept his hold as gentle as he could. 

Jim clung to him, head pressed against his shoulder and his arms gripping tight. They moved, then, without Spock having to encourage him, Jim’s arms shifting so that he could catch fistfuls of Spock’s deep green shirt. His smaller body was cool within Spock’s arms, and he held the man with careful ease as he stalked across the stage.

“Leo, we’re going to Spock’s, okay? I’ll send the address to your Comm. I’m not really sure what’s going on, but I’ve never seen him like this.” 

Dipping his head slightly, Spock nuzzled his nose against the other man’s hair to breath in the scent of him, but his usually crisp scent was warped by the bite of iron. It was all he could smell then, making every other scent in the auditorium, and then the lobby, seem just as sharp and off. A fine tremble had started, across the other man’s skin, and he could feel it in every place that they touched.

 “Jim.”

 “Hmmm?”

 That mouth was pressed, just so, against his exposed collar bone, and the hot air that was exhaled against the thin skin there sent a sharp shiver across his system.

 “Do you know who assaulted you?” 

Those fingers tightened, the nails of them biting into Spock’s chest briefly, through the fabric of his shirt, and it was only his rigid self-control that kept him from wincing. Just as quickly as they had tightened though, they released, and he felt rather than saw as Jim’s hands went limp into the curve of his lap. It was unsettling behavior for such an independent man.

“It was just an accident.” 

There was no one to see the way that his mouth pressed thin, not with Nyota’s feet echoing down the stairs as she jogged to catch up with them, and the rest of the world seemed too busy on a Saturday to put much traffic near the symphony house. His lips twisted, subtly, and the muscles in his arms tightened where they supported Jim’s weight; but the other man didn’t seem to notice, and that was fine. 

An accident indeed, but he had ways of finding answers when he wanted them, and such a crime against his T’hy’la could not go unpunished. 

-

It came as an afterthought that his home would be considered too warm for most human’s comfort.

With her geographical history, Nyota never seemed to find the need to complain that the air was too dry or too hot. Never once had he witnessed red blood dripping from her nose like he had seen from his mother at one time or another; nor did she ever show the symptoms of a headache brought about by the heat. Instead, she seemed comfortable with the conditions of his home, leading him to forget that not all humans shared her preferences.

Such was made obvious in the sudden, thin sheen of sweat that he could feel against Jim’s skin where they touched. Carefully, mindful of the way that the other man leaned heavily against him, Spock strode through his living room so that he could ease his charge onto the couch. Jim went easily, releasing the fabric of his dark shirt where his slender fingers had started to play with it once more and, from the new vantage point, Spock could see that the damage to Jim’s face had darkened further.

Nyota had stayed outside of the apartment, leaving them with a small semblance of privacy, while she waited for Leonard to join them.

Taking advantage of that privacy Spock bent, resting himself upon one knee beside Jim’s outstretched legs. Instantly, the other man leaned into the direction that Spock turned his head, to inspect the discolored areas, but the bright blue of his eyes stayed closed off from the world. A pity, to be denied such a sight, yet it made it easier to view the rest of his face without being distracted. 

The scent of iron was still there, subtle in the air, and brought out by the way that his friend was forced to breathe through his mouth. His teeth were still stained, turned orange by the discoloration from his blood, and the golden skin below his lip had not been spared from the thin, slow drip of red.

 “Ashayam, is there anywhere else, apart from the visible injuries, that you are hurt?” 

A quiet, adverse sound was all he received in response to his question, but the way that Jim’s shoulders were tight with a tension, that he presumed to be discomfort, spoke of something else entirely.

“…’m fine, Spock, it doesn’t even hurt.”

A lie, as blatant a one as he had ever heard, and his lips pulled down a little in frustration at the denial. Not only that, but Jim seemed as if he were ashamed, although whatever logic could have been behind such a decision was impossible to find, and Spock was left confused without it. A grave injustice had been visited upon the other man, and yet he seemed more tight lipped than the Vulcan had ever witnessed in a human.

“If it does not hurt, then why will you not tell me how this accident came to pass?”

There was no reply, though, and instead his dark eyes watched as the younger man curled in on himself and his lips pulled into a weak sneer. 

 “Jim, I am not faulting you...”

“ -in somebody alive ‘fer this, Ny, ain’t no fairness in wailin’ on a man that can’t even see ya’. Got half a mind t’set Pasha after the bastards.” 

Quasar blue and stained with red, Jim’s eyes snapped open, chilling in the way that, for once, they found Spock’s directly. It was breathtaking, to be caught by that gaze for the first time, and so painfully unfair to think that Jim would never be able to see the effect that he had on the people around him.

Even at the hushed sounds of Leonard and Nyota in the entryway, the other man ducked down, head dropping between his knees where he pulled them up. His fists tangled within his hair for a moment, and it was with a firm touch that Spock tried to untangle the appendages. Jim seemed set on holding on tight though, and the roots of his hair strained where they were pulled. 

“Stop. That ain’t gonna do nothin’ but make him go harder.” 

The same scowling, brunette man from the auditorium stared down at him with a sharp frown, lines of worry wrinkling his forehead and his face flushed from exertion. ‘Bones’, as Jim had affectionately called the man, was everywhere in his life now, it seemed, filling the time of the doting boyfriend that he had heard Nyota speak of insistently. The very same man, whom he felt more comfortable calling ‘Leonard’, pleased to know that ‘Bones’ wasn’t an actual name, didn’t hesitate to invade his space, forcing Spock to move aside.

The doctor’s entire demeanor changed, face softening around the edges and his hands reaching up to gently stroke his fingertips across the backs of Jim’s. Jealousy was a fickle, primitive emotion, but it tried to give itself life as Spock watched the way that Jim began to relax, the way that his knuckles lost their pressed white color at the contact.

“Hey, Jimmy, heard you got into a spot of trouble.” 

A quiet whine came in response, and it was only a mixture of his close proximity to the two and his enhanced hearing that allowed him to notice it. Leonard noticed it as well, if the way his frown deepened meant anything, but his touch stayed just as light on Jim’s skin. 

“I didn’t even do anything this time, Bones.”

“I know Jimmy, you never do. Now, c’mon kid, lemme see that face.” 

He watched as the other man hooked his fingers under the curve of Jim’s chin, tipping his head up slowly from the dark shelter of his knees. His musician’s fingers fell away from the ruined tail of his hair, moving to clench on his shirt instead, while his feet fell back to the floor. The scowl stayed firmly in place on the older man’s face, deepening in the lines around his mouth and between his eyes, and the way that his thin lips moved was a silent curse that Spock couldn’t quite understand.

His words went against his obvious anger though and it was strange, how such a harsh frown could pull at his face while his voice stayed gentle and light. 

“Lookit that ugly mug! Almost couldn’t tell there was anything wrong with ya.”

“Shut up, bastard.” 

Quiet laughter colored Jim’s voice, staying there while the other man hunted in his satchel for a portable dermal regenerator.

“Keep talkin’, Princess, you know what that does to me.”

Brows climbing, Spock turned his head to give Nyota a wide-eyed glance. She seemed unconcerned although, despite a faint smile touching her face, tension had bled into the way that she held herself, with her hips uneven and her arms wrapped loosely around her own torso. Her sweater had started to fall off of one shoulder, and it took a few seconds before she noticed his gaze, returning it with a worried expression of her own. 

“I’m beautiful as fuck, don’t even try to front - Fuck!” 

A sharp snapping sound filled the warm air of his living room, and Spock jerked his head back in time to see Leonard squeezing his fingers on either side of the now straight slope of Jim’s nose. The other man had closed his eyes tight, face scrunched up and his body trying to lean away from the no doubt painful contact. A hand curled on the back of his head kept him locked in place though, and the twist to Leonard’s mouth was apologetic even if Jim couldn’t see it.

“Exhale through your nose Jimmy, I got to make sure your nasal passage isn’t blocked by anything.”

A rush of stuttered air left Jim’s nose, on command, and a thin spray of coagulated blood spread itself across Leonard’s palm. The doctor-in-training didn’t seem bothered by it, though, just gave a nod of thanks when he heard Nyota murmur that she’d go get a towel. His attention stayed with Jim, regardless of how he surely must have felt Spock’s eyes burning into him.

“Good boy. Can you do it again?”

A small, shifting nod, but the air came out clean, and he took the grey towel that was handed to him without looking away.

“Good. I’m gonna put the regen patches on your face now, alright?”

“They fuckin’ itch.”

The words were slurred, Jim’s eyes cracking open to stare out in sightless slits of blue. Spock could see the shifting tendons in Leonard’s forearm, knew that the man’s fingers were soothing gently against the back of Jim’s head.

Helplessness was just as strange a feeling as jealousy, but it was obvious that there was nothing he could do to help the situation.

“And you’re gonna deal with it, otherwise I’ll let you keep lookin’ like an Andorian whore till you heal on your own.”

“Fuck you."

The crinkling of sterile wrap sounded as Leonard took out one of the patches, holding it up to Jim’s face. Tapping the pad of his finger against a thin eyelid, he waited until it closed before fixing the patch over the center of the bruise, securing it in place with the adhesive around the edges. Another went to the side of Jim’s nose, and he placed it there with the same amount of care.

“Fuck me? Maybe later, darlin’, you know I don’t much care for an audience.”

The laughing sneer that pulled at Jim’s mouth brought attention to the split in his lip, and Leonard hummed under his breath as he searched through his satchel once more. A tricorder emerged from the dark depths, though it simply found a temporary home on Spock’s floor instead of being put to use. A cylinder of antiseptic spray came next, followed by a miniature regenerator, and a thin flashlight with a key ring that hooked around the first knuckle of his pinky.

“Say ‘Aah’.”

“Thought you said you didn’t want an audience.” 

“Open up, Jimmy, or I’ll shove it up your nose.” 

“Kinky fucker,”

Mouth falling open all the same, Jim grumbled the last two words with a content sort of amusement. Such a sound did nothing to help the unwelcomed confusion that Spock felt at their interaction, and he watched silently as Jim’s tongue was pressed down by a thin stick. The flashlight lit up the pink of his mouth, showing where the back of his tongue had been sliced open by his teeth. That appeared to be the extent of the damage, though, and Leonard clicked his tongue at the sight of it.

“Can’t put anythin’ on that, Jimmy.”

“I know.”

“Lip hurt?”

“A bit, yeah.”

Humming, Leonard used the antiseptic to clean away the blood on Jim’s chin, ignoring the way that the other man hissed at the contact, and tapped his chin up once, twice. From there, he stretched a small patch over the split in his lip, spreading the skin with his unoccupied fingers when Jim tried to lean away from him.

“How’s the head doing? Any ringing in the ears? Feeling nauseous?”

“Usually, but that tends to happen when you’re in my face.”

“Smart ass. How many were there?”

“Two.”

Eyes narrowing sharply, Leonard nodded, and Spock felt that hot coil of anger start its dance within his gut once more. A quick flurry of movement then, his own fists clenching on the denim fabric across his thighs while the brunette efficiently administered a hypo into the tissue of Jim’s neck, needle gone before the other man could even flinch away from it.

“Good boy.”

“Damnit Bones… fuck was that?” 

It was a strange, unsettling experience, watching as the drug took effect and pulled the vibrant man toward unconsciousness.

Tapping his hand against the unblemished side of Jim’s face, Leonard slowly got the other man’s attention, his dazed eyes sweeping in an arch to the ceiling before they settled somewhere in the direction of the hall.

“Hey Jimmy, can you hear me?”

“Mmmm hhm.”

Nodding, lips pressing together for a moment, Spock watched as Leonard took a deep breath, letting it out while his lips moved in a quiet counting motion. Down from ten, hand still on the side of Jim’s face as he went, before he cleared his throat loudly to get the other man’s attention once more.

“Who jumped you, Jimmy?”

“D’nno, he smelled good though. Big hands too, r…real warm, came up behind me when I wus practicin’ and started talkin’ in my ear. He…he smelled real good, and I kind of just wanted t-to lick him, I think?”

Fists clenching, Spock’s heart did a sharp twist within his side, and his stomach did a dance all its own in an internal fit of rage.

“Thought you said there were two?”

Jim gave a wobbling nod, his teeth clicking together loudly. Leonard winced at the loud sound of it, bracing the pad of his thumb against the socket of Jim’s jaw to keep it from happening again, though he kept quiet as the drugged young man gathered himself. Jim lolled a bit, fingers clenching and tracing across the fabric of the couch beneath him, and his tongue poked at the dermal regenerator on his lip before he started up again.

“Other guy was a…an ass. Reeked like Frank did, sweat and booze and jizz. Kept telling me t’look at him.  Didn’t seem t’get it that I ca-couldn’t. ‘m not sure which one of ‘em started hittin’ me, but the…the stink, he was talkin’ when they left, somethin’ ‘bout damaged goods?”

A low growl thrummed within his chest, and Spock pressed his teeth down into the back of his tongue to try and stifle the sound. Such a display would do nothing for Jim, not when there was the chance that the slighter man still felt threatened from his earlier experience. 

Leonard’s face darkened, his brows pulling down over his eyes and his mouth setting into a stiff line. With it, his cheeks pulled back, exposing his teeth in an animalistic display that he didn’t bother to try and tamper the way that Spock had withheld his own reaction within himself. His touch stayed gentle though, it seemed, and his voice was just as soft.

“You’re fine now, okay?”

“Bit one of ’em, not sure which. It…he tried t’press his hand over my mouth, an’ I ‘bout took a chunk out of ‘is palm.”

The grin that the other man gave was a sharp thing then, savage in its nature, and his fingers tapped softly against Jim’s cheek.

“Good darlin’, that’s real good. Go to sleep now for me, alright?”

Jim nodded, and his head tipped back on Spock’s couch, mouth opening further as the drug took him, and it was with a tight expression that Spock watched Leonard pack away his equipment.

“Spock, wasn’t it?”

“Affirmative.”

“Leonard McCoy, kid’s best friend. Heard a lot about you in the past few weeks, kid never shuts up. You did good, for someone who’s never dealt with him before, but next time, don’t try to force motions on him, make it seem like they’re his idea. Makes the whole process of patching him up go a lot smoother.”

One brow lifting, Spock rolled to his feet to gaze at the other man. Nyota had taken the towel, disappearing through his kitchen to no doubt sanitize it, or dispose of it however she saw fit. Being left alone with the southern man in his living room was strange, even though he had indeed invited the man into his home.

From where he was slouched back between them, Jim’s breath was a low wheeze of exhaustion.

“You say that as if you assume this will happen again.” 

The smile that stretched those lips was a hard thing, difficult to call a smile though he couldn’t find another word suitable to describe the way that his mouth moved. It was nothing like the smile that he often saw on Nyota’s face, or even the one that he had found himself looking forward to from Jim. All the same, it would have to do. 

“See, that’s the thing I don’t think you really get, Spock. It will.” 

- 

Alone, with his home empty of his sudden visitors, and the ruined towel properly disposed of, Spock held a steaming mug of tea between his palms. Smelling sweetly of spices and fruit, the blend was one that his mother had mixed together for him as a child when she had seen the way that he had pushed away his bitter Vulcan drink. It wasn’t the same, something always seemed to be missing whenever he made the mix himself, no matter how illogical the perceived absence seemed.

His feet were bare, his hair in a state of disarray from the scalding water of his shower, and the domestic look that he had adopted for the night was one he had been told multiple times suited him rather well.

His body curling in a way he only indulged himself with when he was alone, one leg pressed up against his clavicle when he settled into his desk chair, toes curling comfortably on the edge of the seat cushion, Spock took a slow sip of his drink.  His head tipped as he swallowed, and his eyes stared at the screen of his terminal. Before him, filtering past on the display, was a far quicker version of the week’s events, and he took another sip while he waited patiently for the timeframe that he needed…

The security overrides for the symphony house had been distressingly easy to work his way past, and he would have to correct their lack of security once he had found what he needed. Instead, for the moment, he took another sip of his drink, and watched the footage as Jim’s golden form carefully ambled his way into the auditorium, fingers trailing over the backs of chairs and a thin white cane in hand. He appeared more delicate from the camera’s vantage point than he did in person, and Spock watched as the man went about the routine of taking out his instrument, plucking at the strings before starting to slide across the floor.

A looming, hairless figure entered the screen a few moments later, after Jim had become comfortable with himself and lost in his music, and the muddy shade of green that the alien wore as skin made Spock’s fingers crack along his mug. 

Just as Jim had described, he watched as the Orion male lifted himself easily onto the stage, and caught Jim by the waist before he could dip into a spin once more. It was instantaneous, the way that he was able to see the man’s pheromones take effect, Jim’s body becoming more pliant than it usually was even when he was at his most comfortable. He fell easily against the Orion’s body, and his viola slid down to the ground with a bit of a bounce even though Spock could hear no sound from it.

A hand upon his face, stroking in a mock loving fashion across the cut of Jim’s jaw, and the rage that such a gesture brought distracted him from seeing the second figure until the man was beside them, and his own hands were reaching out for Jim. Denobulan, marked by the recession of his hairline and the raised patterns of flesh upon the sides of his face, though the way that he held himself was different than the Orion. 

Stronger, more assured despite his slighter size. 

Moments passed, and then the violence began, with the Orion’s thick fist slating itself into Jim’s eye, his nose, before the Denobulan could attempt to stop him. Reeling, head dropping forward, no doubt from the mixture of pheromones and pain, Spock could see where Jim’s mouth had fallen open, but the cavern it created was quickly covered by the Denobulan’s palm. The smaller alien didn’t give the human any of his attention though, expression stern while he spoke to the Orion.

Motion overtook the screen again in a quick succession as the Denobulan’s eyes widened, hand jerking back from Jim’s mouth. A trail of red blood hung in the air for seconds and nothing more, before it fell to the stage floor to be lost from view. Just as quickly, the hand that he had just bitten smacked across Jim’s mouth, causing the tear in the flesh of his lip. 

It was following a quick movement of the Denobulan’s mouth that the Orion released Jim, and the human fell to the stage floor in a heap. Instantly, he curled on himself, fingers knotting over the back of his head and neck in a protective dome that would have done nothing if they had truly desired to harm him.

Tapping on the screen, Spock paused the image on their faces, both turned toward the door and consequently toward the camera. The Orion’s mouth was open, while the Denobulan had a scowl that pulled at the ridges on his chin, and Spock forced himself to take another sip of his tea while he stared at their faces, even though his stomach had turned hot and sour.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look, a new chapter! I'm getting nagged, gana go do my author homework now  
> UPDATE: Hi, so bit of finagling and I hope that the transition confusion is better now? Thank you to the people who pointed that out, I appreciate it, really!

Days passed before Spock was able to see Jim once more and, as illogical as it was, his skin felt as if it had tightened with his irritation. Body burning, it had taken him longer than he was proud of to notice the way that his blood seemed to boil within his veins, how his skin seemed too hot; too tight. Such a condition was something he was not accustomed to and a haze of panic had fallen over him, in fear that his Time had come.

Yet there had been no surge of lust, no call for mating or bloody challenge and, instead, untamable frustration was all that he felt.

Swiftly, he had decided that the actions taken against Jim could not go unpunished, but the toll that the wait for retribution was placing upon his shields, and control of his emotions, was taxing.

Meditation had been hard to achieve, since that night when his home had been filled with his broken and hurt friends; regardless of his own discomfort, action was to be taken immediately, and acknowledgement of that had filled him with an unwavering sense of resolve.

-

Humans, for all that they thought themselves to be an advanced species, favored certain types of entertainment that he would forever find… degenerate.

Sexual congress was something that he understood, desired even, yet the act of selling one’s body in exchange for credits brought a frown to his face. Alcohol held no interest for Vulcans, metabolized through their system far more quickly than it could affect them, and the results of it upon a human under its influence left much to be desired. Drugs, a stimulant that a subculture of the human species had grown attached to, only caused him to turn up his nose in an action that he had seen from his mother on occasion.

Though Spock would never admit it aloud, not if he could help it, it had been rather easy to find something on Earth that he enjoyed.

His people would have found his interest atrocious, his father scandalous. It was thrilling, in a debauched sort of way, the pleasure he took from immersing himself in the atmosphere of a Terran ‘nightclub’. It was such a human thing, the way that he found himself at ease with the heavy beat of music vibrating across his nerves. Usually, it was an indulgence (as Nyota would call it) that he only ever allowed himself once in every few weeks.

There would be no chocolate, no chance of brushing his hands across another person if he could help it, and absolutely no acceptance of a drink that he hadn’t bought himself, regardless of the circumstances. It was strange, being in such a place without the pretense of relaxing and allowing himself to simply enjoy being without responsibility for a few hours.

Days of security footage from all of the Academy’s cameras had been meticulously combed through before Spock had been forced to widen his search, taking the frozen images of the two men and pushing them through a facial recognition system. The results had come back, and his lips had pulled down into a sharp, private sneer.

Such was fate: it seemed that the two protagonists frequented the exact same retreat that he had found for himself all those months ago. It made it simpler for him to enter and move around within the club, without attracting all of the room’s attention with the turn of his face and his physical form; not as he had done his first night there. After some weeks of attendance at the venue, no longer was a glass of hot chocolate necessary to inhibit his nervous system; to make him appear and feel more at ease in the loud surroundings.

Such ease refused to come so willingly on this occasion, though, not when his mind seemed intent to remind him that he was on the hunt. There would be no enjoyment tonight.

All the same, the building was just as it always was, with warm air that brushed pleasantly against his skin and colorful lights that were just the right side of being too bright. Inside the door, admitted easily and without question by the bouncer that recognized him, his skin already felt like it had been set alive; the sounds from the speakers vibrating across his nerve endings. Head tipping, gut feeling tight despite his relaxed appearance, Spock brushed his fingers briefly across the waistband of his dark jeans before turning, allowing his eyes to sweep the room.

Across the way, in a secluded corner, the Orion’s face was impossible to miss after studying it so intently from the security feeds. His large hands were clutched around a girl’s thin waist, and the cruel tightness around his eyes spoke a truth that contradicted the grin upon his face. The Orion was scoping, and farther back was the Denobulan, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed and a bored look upon his face.

The words he had running through his mind were rehearsed things, settling on the back of his tongue and waiting but… Oh! How they made him feel like nothing better than the men he was about to confront.

Striding forward there was a purposeful, calculated grace, to his movements and he lifted his head high in response to the gazes he drew. It was impractical to be modest, not when he knew that the people around him found him to be physically attractive and definitely not when he could use such an attraction to his advantage. It would be his last chance to soak up the attention within this environment, since this particular establishment would no doubt no longer be welcoming once he was finished for the night. A pity, really…

It took little time, barely a few slides of his hips once he was within the vicinity of the Orion, before the creature’s attention was quickly caught. Tilting his head, Spock reached out, letting his fingers trail delicately along the fabric upon the man’s shoulders, bottom lip falling open enough to be classified as what Nyota considered a ‘pout’. Just as quickly, the girl was gone, pushed aside with a loud, squealing huff that was lost under the music and then, the Orion reached for him…

Everything inside of him revolted at the thought of its touch, and disgust spiked sharp within his belly at the notion of having those hands upon him. Taking a swaying step just out of reach, Spock shook his head, letting one brow lift in what could be seen as amusement. The Orion huffed, large hands turning into fists, and his eyes narrowed even while his thick lips turned into a vile smirk.

“Does the Vulcan want to play?”

Canting his hips to the side, letting his body roll with the motion to avoid the man’s hand once more, he let his movements seem lazy, as if they were an afterthought. Let the man think himself worthy, let him think he was desired, it would make it all the easier for Spock to get what he needed in the end. Still, such a thought made his tongue curl in disgust, but his body stayed fluid when those fingers danced out once more.

“I require assistance regarding a matter that I have been most reliably informed that you, and your employer, are equipped to handle.”

The rough playfulness that had filled the man’s features was gone, then, and it was amusing to see the way that his shoulders sagged. So foolish, for the creature to have thought that he stood some semblance of a chance with him, and Spock watched as he turned his thick neck to look over his shoulder. Eye contact must have been made, for the Denobulan straightened, the look of boredom sliding away into a sort of assessing gaze, instead. The being ticked his head to the side, a signal that caused the Orion to move away, leaving Spock with little choice but to follow if he wished to contain the situation.

It would have been so easy, to press his fingertips into the nerves in the Orion’s spine, to watch the way that the man crumbled under the killing pressure. All the same, it was a challenge of sorts, to keep his hands to himself in the wake of such an opportunity, even when they felt stiff and empty from the lack of something palpable under them. The urge had to wait though, even when his memory was more than ready to supply him with the slurred sounds of Jim’s voice, the battered flesh upon his face. It would do him no good to kill the Orion without the Denobulan there, the man would simply pay out more money; hire another guard to do exactly what this one had done to his Jim.

Such actions were inexcusable.

The room he was led into was private, with no security measures to be seen, and a door that was immediately latched into place behind him. It was foolish of them, perhaps, to assume that he did not know every override code, for every room within the building, for the sake of his own safety. It was necessary to let them play their game, though, and so his hands folded behind his back in parade rest and he tensed his shoulders more than required in order to alter his stance.

“You know, I don’t think I’ve ever had a Vulcan say that they need my help.”

Shoulders tight, Spock’s eyes were still bloodshot from the agitating drops that he had applied before entering the establishment, and perfect control of his autonomic systems had caused the flush of faint emerald across his skin. Such an act had been practiced, and it was with reluctance that he had admitted to himself that he looked the part of a man ready to fall into his Time.

“I would not be seeking assistance if the matter was one which I could handle on my own.”

“Hmm, and what is the matter?”

The Orion was standing behind him, now, nearly a foot taller than himself and well over twice as wide. His weight was no doubt close to that of the piano that sat in the bay window of Spock’s living room and, if he was a smart man, his stance would be set so that his center of gravity rested in his core. Thankfully, Orion men were not known for their intelligence, and Spock knew without having to even glance that the man had settled his weight in his knees. He would fall swiftly and without much force at all.

Clenching his jaw and then his fingers, Spock paused, letting his reluctance show for every reason that they would wrongly interpret before he spoke:

“My Time is nearly upon me and, given the financial and cultural status of my family, I am not seen as an ideal mate among my people. Whilst this unfortunate situation is something that I have embraced, as a matter that cannot be changed, I must seek another to sate myself when it becomes necessary.”

The Denobulan’s eyes narrowed, pulling at the ridges along the side of his face. His gaze was sharp, assessing, as his lips pulled back into an oily smile.

“Oh, you must truly be desperate, to come to me about this.”

One brow lifting high, the expression that settled upon Spock’s face was a mockery of a thing, with a corner of his lips lifting in an indulgent hint of a smile.

“I prefer blondes.”

The Denobulan’s laugh filled the air, just as slick and false as his smile had been, and Spock felt that green rage rolling through him once more.

“Of course you do. Well, you’re a customer just like every other one I’ve got, so you pay what I tell you to pay, and I’ll get you a nice little blonde.”

It all slotted into place then, just as he had known it would, and the green haze turned into something sharper, something brighter that washed its way over his vision. Turning swiftly on his heel, one hand lashed out, catching the Orion under the jaw even as his other leg swept at the meaty knees.

The Orion’s fall was hard. Spock felt it in the way that the floor below them seemed to shift, and in the rough pop as the man’s jaw came unhinged under his fingers. The Orion’s cry was choked off, though, a stuttered thing that was lost by the way that the thumb of Spock’s other hand lodged its way into his trachea.

The Denobulan was spluttering behind him now, heels clattering as he scrambled backwards through the room towards the exit. Meanwhile, watching the way that the Orion’s eyes bulged for a moment, a sick fascination and satisfaction settled under Spock’s skin as the creature tried to suck in a breath. He paused only for a moment, long enough to savor the sharp panic that ran under the man’s skin, and then his fingers were on the sides of his head, a sharp crack emitting when Spock twisted it far to the side.

The body was still falling when he turned to stare down the shivering Denobulan.

-

The carpet in his living room was white, a choice that he had made carefully, out of a selfish enjoyment of the way that the plush material felt under his skin. Everything in the room had been assigned its position in a tasteful, logical fashion; from the dark, syntho-leather couch, to the desk with his private terminal, and to the piano that stretched out under the bay window on the far side of the room. Small splashes of color had been added over the months; a soft knitted pillow, in pink, from Nyota; a garish, supposedly ethnic, rug that Gaila had found somewhere along the way.

Spock had indulged himself in a water shower, and his skin was still flushed almost emerald from the scalding temperature. Hair dripping, the back of his gray shirt had plastered itself to his back immediately, and the sweatpants that he wore were rolled once at the waist to keep them from being too long. Comfortable clothing was a pleasure, although the style that he had decided to wear was something else about his life on Earth that his father would have scorned.

Communicator in hand, he folded himself down onto the couch, a holo of the news already projected on the opposite wall and a steaming cup of tea on the little table beside him.

He paused and surveyed his surroundings, remembering the last time that he and Jim had shared time here…

_He hadn’t expected to see Jim, after his last course of the day, instead he had been filled with the intent of going home and relaxing before his piano. A video comm to his mother, perhaps, since he hadn’t had the chance to talk to her the day before. With luck, he would be able to invite Gaila to join him at the new Tellarite sushi restaurant that had opened the previous month._

_The sight of Jim, leaning against the wall outside of his classroom, slender white cane folded in one hand, was not something he had planned for. It had been proper though, to make his presence known, since the other man had been waiting for him, no doubt. Just as it had been polite to invite Jim to accompany him home, when the other had explained that he had been ‘…sexiled from my apartment, you don’t even understand, Spock’._

_The satisfaction of seeing Jim, healed from his ordeal and comfortable within his own skin once more, had been a pleasing thing. The sight of the man in his living room, familiarizing himself anew with the layout of Spock’s home, set a bright, satisfying burn around his heart. It took a startling amount of control to not cross to him, to trace his fingertips along the shell of Jim’s ear, the curve of his jaw._

_Golden fingers trailed across the glossed top of the grand piano, where it was framed in its window, and a self-satisfied smile lifted Jim’s lips._

_“What color is this?’_

_“What color do you reason it is?”_

_Lips and brows furrowed, his fingers clenched down on the surface of the instrument: as if pressing harder would allow him to see. Spock felt no concern for the piano’s surface and instead watched in interest as Jim’s knuckles turned white. Just as quickly as it came, the bleached color was gone, and Jim was gazing out into the room with a wide open expression on his face._

_“Black, because you’re all suave and majestic like that.”_

_“Is that so, Mr. Kirk?”_

_“You sassy fuck, you know you’re hot.”_

_Stepping out, Jim seemed intent to follow his voice, though his feet had other plans. Darting across the floor, bending at the knee enough to make himself shorter than the slighter man, Spock’s arms went out. Easily, Jim seemed to have anticipated his motions, for his hands grasped readily at the slope of Spock’s shoulders, and his fingers dug in._

_One arm curled around Jim’s waist, the other had found its way to the back of the other man’s neck, fingers buried in the wheat curls of his hair. Glacial eyes were wide, and had managed to find him in the spinning motion that the both of them had taken as Spock righted them once more. Those fingers trembled along his shoulders, and he was given a close view as a pink tongue peeked out to wet Jim’s lips._

_“If you don’t kiss me right fucking now, Spock, I’m going to try and do it myself, and you really don’t want me to miss.”_

Spock shook himself and dialed a number into his comm unit.

“… ’s better be good.”

“Leonard?”

“Fuckin’ hell, Spock, it’s too damn early f’r this shit.”

Spock flicked at a piece of lint that had attached itself to the leg of his pants. It fell away easily and fluttered slowly to the floor, where it disappeared from sight into the carpet. He felt no need to be concerned by it, however, the small automated robot that kept the floors clean would catch it when it did its sweep the next morning.

“I had believed that you would wish to know that our mutual problems have been … thoroughly resolved.”

“Is that so?”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello lovelies, here is a new chapter for all you beautiful people. And I look forward to reading your comments, you don't even know~

“A-aah!” The word stretched itself on a yawn, and he watched as her eyes slipped shut and the skin around her mouth pulled tight. Her teeth were straight little white pieces, in the pink of her mouth, and her tongue curled in upon itself in a way that he had witnessed in Terran canines, on many occasions. Thin arms stretched up, fingertips disappearing from view in the screen, and her position held there. Stretched taunt, only for a moment, long enough for the exhale to course through her slender body, and then her hands fell back to her lap once more. “Good morning, Spock.”

“My apologies, Mother, I appear to have miscalculated the time difference between Earth and Vulcan. If you would prefer, I could call back at a later hour?”

Her image was clear on the screen, as if she sat before him on the other side of the desk, and the only thing that punctured that indulgent childish fantasy was the darkness in the windows behind her. Amanda waved a hand in his direction, the fingers of the other occupied with teasing a knot from her loose brown locks, in the way that he had done for Nyota from time to time, when the task frustrated her.  Despite the way that sleep had made her face soft and flushed, with a warm pink light, her smile was warmer still, pulling at her paintless lips while she rested her chin on her knuckles.

“No, this is fine. Your father’s gone on some diplomatic meeting for the Elders, in Vulcana Regar.”

Brows furrowing, Spock watched his mother with a faint frown upon his lips. It was illogical, the way that he shifted his weight slightly, leaning to the side in a subtle motion that she recognized, if the amused tip to her smile meant anything.  As if the change in vantage point, no matter how slight, would allow him to see another part of the room.

“You are alone?”

Amusement put laughter into her voice then, and the sound of it was a tinkling thing that settled some of the loneliness within him.

“Spock, I’m a grown woman.  It’s perfectly fine for me to be alone at night.”

“Nonsense.”

Her laughter was different then, more of a huff than it had been the first time, and he yearned once more. It had been under seven Terran months since he had last seen her in person and, despite the things that he could never admit aloud, he missed her touch. The gentle brush of her emotions, when she deemed it necessary to fix his hair; the cool warmth of her embrace when she forgot herself in her excitement, and wrapped her arms around him.

If he hadn’t been so concerned, he would have given her a faint smile.

“I have I-Chaya with me,” At the mention of his name, a loud snuffing sound came from the bottom of the screen, and a faint tremble overtook the frame. As he watched, the large muzzle of the sehlat appeared first, with its black nose quivering into view. It was with a quiet giggle that his mother pressed her hand on the wet flesh and, immediately after, large black eyes stared back at him, ears perked. “Does that smooth those ruffled feathers?”

“That is an illogical statement, mother, as I do not possess feathers which could be ruffled.”

Her smile took a sharper note then, and he waited patiently, almost hopefully, for a display that he had witnessed in response to his father once. There was nothing though, no vulgarity to follow his logic, and instead Amanda shook her head at him. A strand of her hair fell over I-Chaya’s ear, and he watched as the sehlat tipped his head to the side, his ear twitching in response

“Uh huh. Of course you don’t.”

A comfortable silence settled upon them, and he watched with quiet amusement as she proceeded to tease the large creature with the very same lock of hair. Tickling it across his nose it was refreshing, to see his mother so at ease within her home. So much better than the way that she would hold herself in public, bound in fabrics that hid her hair from view and her face as blank as any Vulcan he had ever known.

“Is everything alright, Spock?”

Her shrewd attentiveness was something that never changed though, no matter the situation or the circumstances, and his lips pressed together in frustration. It was like being a child once more, caught under the knowing look in her sharp eyes while he forced himself to keep still. She was worse than any le-matya, his mother, and despite his hope he knew that she wouldn’t allow the matter to rest until she got the reaction she sought

Hesitation was not an action or emotion that he was familiar with, yet Spock found himself doing just that: hesitating.  Lips parted slightly, no sound escaped from between them, and instead his tongue swiped across the flesh in hopes of finding the things he had wanted to say. There was no easy way to say them though, no simple way to ask, and it was impossible to not see that she noticed his discomfort.  Her eyes widened, and Amanda leaned forward slightly in her chair, the hand that had been playing with I-Chaya falling away from his fur.

“Spock?”

There was worry in her voice, a sickly sort of sound, and his throat felt tight at the tone of it.

“I require assistance on how to affectively court a Terran male.”

Her eyes, the very same that he saw every time he passed a mirror, widened then, and the worry that had tightened her face fell into something else. Something tender, not unlike the expression that he had often seen her give his father.  It was different now, though, sad in a way that it usually wasn’t. Strange, for the smile worn upon her face was something different as well, bright as any of her smiles ever were though more subdued, just the same.

“Oh, _sa-fu_ , are you sure?”

The quietness in her voice, coupled with the Vulcan term, had him relaxing minutely, though only just. There was still a faint wobble to her voice, and a sheen of something bright and wet had taken over her eyes. Tears, his mind supplied not a moment later, those were tears in his mother’s eyes, though she was smiling at him as if he had both just broken her heart and given her the greatest gift all at once.

“Yes.”

A pause.

“Mother, I do not understand your distress. What is it that I have said that has troubled you?”

Another shake, this one with her head instead of her hand, and he heard it clearly as her breath inhaled with a sniff of a sound. She was still smiling at him though, and her fingers curved into I-Chaya’s fur. Spock watched with worried eyes as the large beast rested its heavy head in her lap, and the faint rumbling purr that he emitted filled the background of the call.

“Nothing is the matter, Spock.  I’m just…do you remember? When you were younger, and you and your father decided to surprise me with Mother’s Day for the first time?”

Silently, he nodded, watching her still.

“This is like that. These are happy tears, so don’t worry.  Just, tell me about your mate?”

Subdued, Spock watched carefully, as she dabbed at her eyes with the hem of one sleeve. I-Chaya’s thick tongue was visible then, licking at her elbow in a comforting manner, if the smile that touched her lips at the contact meant anything. Her fingertips scratched through warm brown fur, and he waited with slight reluctance as she collected herself.

“His name is Jim.”

-

February in San Francisco was far more pleasant than December or January had been.

The sun was bright, far warmer than the clouds had been the previous few days, though his state of dress had changed little. His mother had been delighted by the time they had finished their conversation and, in her excitement, she had forced an action of spontaneity upon him. The black long sleeved shirt was nothing that he wouldn’t usually wear, and the dark press of his jeans was just as familiar. His hair, however, she had taken great pleasure in, laughing at the expression of distaste that he hadn’t been able to control when she had instructed him on what to do with the gel that Gaila had left behind her, under his sink.

It felt strange, to have his hair styled in something different than his usual fashion, but his mother had insisted that Jim would appreciate the gesture.

Perhaps, he should have informed her of Jim’s condition.

The look Leonard had given him when the brunette had answered the door had been a startled thing, with his brows arched high and his mouth twisted in a show of disbelief. Quickly, the expression had fallen into something else though, something more amused and friendly.

“Date?”  His voice had been a whisper, quiet and questioning, and he had grinned when Spock had simply nodded in response. Just the same, he had held up a hand to signal Spock to wait before he disappeared back into the apartment, and a clatter had erupted from behind the closed door.  Brow lifting, he had stared at the shut surface with intrigue, fingers clenching behind his back in what he was painfully aware was the typically repressed, Vulcan fashion, as he waited.

 

Ten minutes passed, and he had taken it upon himself to lean against the railing that stood across from their door. It was difficult to tell who was responsible for the location of the chosen apartment, but he was almost certain that the challenging number of stairs necessary to reach the fourth floor had been a prideful decision on Jim’s part. Their apartment was closer to the bay than his own home was, and his head tipped slightly into the breeze as he leaned back against the rail, taking a slow breath of the sharp air. The door clicked, dragging his attention back once more, and he straightened just before it opened.

“I can’t see what the fuck I’m wearing, Bones, and I don’t know where you took it from, so I’m not gonna know where to pu- why are you fucking _shoving me_!”   

The amusement that coiled through his belly was a private thing, as was the smile that he wished to give to his intended.  Neither would be recognized, and neither would do him any good service in such a situation. Instead, Spock simply straightened, and pulled at the ends of his black shirt as he watched the golden dancer right himself. His shirt was a bright gilt color, which set off the flushed color to his cheeks and the brilliance of his eyes. A hot rush of desire coursed its way suddenly, violently, though Spock’s blood at the sight of the other man, and he barely caught the motion as Leonard rolled his eyes at the both of them.

“Hobgoblin’s takin’ you out. Scram, ya little shit, I’ve got a practical to study for.”

“Spock?”

Jim’s hands reached out, fingers flexing wildly in the air, and it was without hesitation that Spock returned the touch with his own. The sensation of their fingers sliding together was electric, an intimate thing that forced him to clamp down on his control to keep from visibly reacting. Bright warmth washed through him then, and the smile that Jim gave him was echoed in the burning emotions that he felt through the contact. Feeling brave, he curled his fingers around the other man’s, nestled their hands together so that they held, and his own lips tipped slightly at the pulse of affection and surprise that danced across the contact.

“Hello, Jim.”

Leonard made a retching sound from the doorway, face pulling down into a sharp frown. It only lasted for a moment though, and then he shoved at Jim’s shoulder, causing the slighter man to stumble forward. Into Spock he fell, who readily righted him with one hand still in his and a gentle touch to his shoulder, though his eyes sought Leonard behind them.

“Get, ‘fore I decide I feel like tyin’ him up and leavin’ him in a corner for a few hours.”

“Why does nobody believe me when I say you’re a kinky fucker?”

Their humor was not lost on him this time, not after having spent hours combing through articles on Terran male interactions. Instead, Spock simply basked in the pleasant emotions that Jim emitted, carefully grazing his thumb across the outer curve of the other man’s hand. The fingers that he held clamped around his in response, and the delight that he felt though their contact caused him to repeat the action once more.

“Get lost.”

The door shut tight with a loud sound, and the two of them were as alone as they could be, on the public walkway of the fourth floor. Hesitation and uncertainty flickered within him, then, and the smile that had been fighting at his lips was lost to the frown that followed. Head tipping, Spock sent forth a flicker of question, and watched as Jim’s glazed eyes darted about in a wild, startled manner. Instantly after, a small laugh erupted from between his lips, smoothing away some of his unease.

“You sure you want to take me out?”

“I am positive, T’hy’la.”

Jim’s smile softened, and his fingers squeezed carefully around Spock’s. He seemed to use the point of contact to lever himself, for he quickly invaded the other man’s space with a single slide of his feet. A glance down showed the marvel of shoes on Jim’s feet, for once, and Spock looked up in time to watch as Jim’s free hand rose up to brush the side of his face. One fingertip caught on the sharp point of an ear, and the shiver that raced its way across Spock’s skin must have been obvious, for Jim’s lips curved where they hovered over his own.

“I don’t know what that means, but I like it.”

-

He had been hesitant, following his mother’s instructions on where to take Jim for their date. The botanical garden was fairly quiet around them, the sounds of the city lost beyond the high, flickering holo-walls. The only other people he had seen were a couple and their child, far ahead of them, and even then he couldn’t hear the sounds of their voices from where he and Jim were situated.

Hand in his own, the shorter man beside him had taken it upon himself to lean against him, with their arms brushing and their fingers tangled together. The content emotion pulsed between them, and he basked quietly in the feeling of it. A slight, swinging motion had overtaken their arms, though he was certain that the action was hardly an accident, he could feel Jim’s joy in Spock’s acceptance of the comfortable rhythm building between them.

His hesitation seemed to be for naught, for Jim had enjoyed himself thus far along their stroll. Lunch had been an entertaining affair, with his companion more than pleased with the chosen restaurant, if the way he had devoured his sesame noodles and broccoli meant anything. His voice had been light the entire time and, even though Spock had kept a close eye on the other man, Jim had kept everything perfectly clean; from his face to his plate, never once missing his mouth, nor his cutlery or drink. The same easy, relaxed satisfaction had followed Jim from the restaurant to the garden, and it hummed along between them.

“You know, I thought I heard somewhere that Vulcan’s don’t date.”

Easing himself along with the swinging motion that Jim had established, Spock tipped his head, turning away from the Kazon flora that sprawled along their left. The colors of it were bright, the leaves a soft, red veined orange that was muted faintly by the thin white hairs that grew from along the veins. Long, drooping lime flowers hung over the leaves, the tips dragging to the grassy ground beneath them. Jim’s eyes were brighter than anything else though, his expression sweeter, and it was with a faint smile of his own that Spock gave the man his attention.

“That would be correct.”

The laughter that Jim gave up was a snort; a loud thing that echoed in the quiet around them. The fingers around his own fluttered, and he watched as Jim’s other hand trailed across the white leaves of a plant. His fingers curled across it, nails catching on the leaf, pulling away pale blue liquid where the fibers parted under the pressure.

“Then what do you call this, Mr Spock?” 

Reaching out in a moment of daring, his free hand wrapped itself around Jim’s waist, turning the two of them until they were chest to chest. Laughter filled the air, spilling from between Jim’s pink, upturned lips once more. His free hand went up, bracing itself on Spock’s shoulder as if to steady himself. Spock’s own fingers curved, curling around the soft fabric that stretched there, and he watched the way that Jim’s eyebrows rose in amusement.

“Courtship, Mr Kirk.”

Jim’s mouth fell open then, and the pink of his tongue peaked out to wet at his bottom lip, pressing a shine across it. Restlessness was a strange thing to feel in such a quantity, but it was without hesitation that Spock leaned forward, bending slightly. Brushing his mouth across Jim’s, he held the contact, the bright burst of golden warmth that washed across his _katra_ in a smooth caress. Those fingers caught his ear once more, drawing another shudder from his core, and his grip upon Jim tightened. The slide of their fingers together was a burning, erotic thing, sending a rush of warmth down his spine, and he held Jim close as the other man gasped and arched into him.

“And that?”

The words were mumbled against his own lips, and Spock didn’t bother resisting the urge to bite at the plush mouth against his own.

“Emotional transference.”  

If his own voice sounded breathless, Jim made no verbal mention that he noticed it. Instead, his callused fingers grazed along Spock’s flesh once more. The response was instantaneous, another drip of warmth down his spine and a quiet moan as Jim’s eyes slid shut.

“How… how about we go somewhere else, and you tell me more about this courtship?”

-

The call that he had put through to Leonard had gone directly to the message tone, though it had seemed necessary to inform the other man that his roommate would be occupied. A courtesy call, since Jim appeared rather content to keep himself tangled across Spock’s bed, with his naked flesh warm and welcoming against the black of his bed sheets. He had not stirred, not even when Spock had slid from the bed beside him, though the human had snuffled and stretched across the mattress, taking the warm space that Spock had left behind.

The message had been short, a simple way to assure the other man that Jim was indeed well cared for, and that he would not be returning till the next day.

Unashamed of his nudity, Spock stood aloof in his living room, gazing around at the tangle of shoes and pants that trailed across the floor and into his bedroom. Stretching, his arms went high above his head, spine shifting while his shoulders popped. Fingers tapping at the remote, he watched as the screen across the room lit the wall with bright static for a moment before the picture settled.

Pausing, he watched as the news spoke of the mysterious deaths of two guests at _The Fringe_ , and the investigation that had started due to the violent circumstances surrounding their deaths. Unease started to settle in his stomach, causing the muscles there to tighten, and his fingers to flex. Jaw clenching, he reached out, tapping at the remote once more to plunge the room into darkness.

“Spock?”

Fingers flicking up to push back his sweat-slicked, sex tousled hair, he turned, gazing back into the darkness of the bedroom. Faint rustling sounds reached his ears, and it was strange, to have another person in his room, in his bed.  It pleased a primitive, private thing within him though, and his breath came out in a sharp rumble.

“Coming, Jim.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello darlings, here, have this while I fix a few typos that weren't there when I posted this God damned chapter.

The pleasant buzz that his weekend activities had filled him with had served his body well. His shoulders felt relaxed in places that he hadn’t known were stiff and, upon internal inspection, Spock had been surprised to find meditation easier to achieve.  His home still carried the faint scent of Jim who had stayed not one night, but two, only to be returned to his own home wearing Spock’s clean clothes. His bedroom was filled with the perfume of their coupling, sharp and thick with musk, like nothing he had ever smelled before.

-

It had been painfully easy to overlook, with his pleasant distraction still sending a low thrum through his veins, but his first class had been filled with whispers.  Quiet things, which he hadn’t allowed himself to overhear, for human gossip mattered little to him, despite the way that Spock usually took great pleasure in listening in on their conversations.  His mind was elsewhere though, caught between his lessons and his pleasure; the words that scrawled themselves across his PADD and the memory of the startled cry that had left Jim’s lips when his orgasm had taken him.

After the class had let out though, it was impossible to miss.

Campus was alive with the sort of energy that he usually only witnessed on a Friday. Strange indeed, since he knew the day was a Monday and, as such, students should not be as excitably active so early in the week. Fingers tightening on his satchel, Spock discretely readjusted the bag where it lay across his chest. Strange indeed, although he refused to allow himself to dwell on the details. Humans were unpredictable things at the best of times, and what right did he have to judge them based on their break of habit? Perhaps it was a holiday that he had missed, a day that he had forgotten to observe.

No, that was incorrect, for the Terran holiday of Valentines had been the day previous, and he had observed it well with his fingertips across Jim’s body and his tongue along his salty skin.

Turning his body to the side to avoid a collision with a running student, Spock turned his head slightly as the sound of a commotion grew. Much of the attention was centering itself on the western quad, and it was with narrowed eyes that he watched from where he stood. There was nothing to see though, nothing that would answer the curious questions that burned on his tongue, for he refused to force himself into a group of humans without knowing the cause.  

“Spock!”

Turning quickly, Nyota’s fingers were sharp things when they found him, latching to the fabric of his arm, the strap of his bag. There was an urgency to her face that he had not witnessed before, a wildness to her eyes that was just as fierce as it was uncertain. Her mouth, painted a stark, shimmering white today, was pulled sharply into a frown, and it was disconcerting. Peculiar, to see such an acutely negative expression on her usually pleasant face, and Spock found himself reaching out with the desire to comfort his friend.

Instead of accepting him though, she batted at his hands with her dark ones, loose hair swinging around her shoulders when she grabbed at his bag strap. She used it to pull him then, yanking his larger body behind her as she went, their course seemingly set for somewhere away from the crowd of students. Nyota gave no room for objection as she set a pace that even he, with his long legs, found rapid.

“Nyota, what is happening?”

“Not now, Spock.”

Everything was a blur, of colors and of voices, for there were students passing them as they pushed on, and it was unnerving, to not understand. Such a situation seemed to have brought on a degree of panic among the student body, yet the reasoning behind it was completely lost to him. Ignorance burned in his throat, setting an unwelcome surge of confusion and agitation through his mind, and the half-Vulcan let out a loud sound. It rumbled from his chest, sending a low tremble through the air, and Nyota caught the sub harmonics of it with a startled look on her face. Her expression softened slightly, though her stride didn’t change from its brisk, nearly punishing pace.

“It’s not safe to stay out here. There’s going to be a student protest, and I don’t think you want to-“

“Where is Jim?”

His boyfriend, as Jim had affectionately labeled himself, with a cheeky tone to his voice and a filthy tilt to his lips, had a schedule that he followed, between each and every one of his classes. Certain paths that he took due to the fact that he knew them well, and where people knew to stay out of his way so as to not hinder him. Such a scramble of activity surely would break that pattern, and something bitter dropped itself down into Spock’s stomach with a slick slide. Sharp and consuming, it wrapped itself around his heart with its cool fingers, and his breath left him on an audible exhale when he felt it squeeze and hold.

“Safe.”  Her dark eyes were wide in her face, lined delicately with black as they usually were, and she paused them for a moment in their walk. Long enough to brush his bangs from his face, and when her fingertips skimmed his skin, his eyes closed at the reassurance that her mind conveyed. “Len got him as soon as things started up; we’re meeting up with them.  Gaila’s off campus; she doesn’t have classes until after noon today, but Scotty went to get her.  I think they’re leaving the bay area.”

His brow furrowed when his eyes opened, and then they were off again, following Nyota with much more compliance than he had originally given.

“Is Gaila not safe?”

There was a sharp knowing then, in her eyes, when she turned slightly to gaze at him once more, and Spock was struck by it. There was compassion to soften the edges of it, a form of understanding, but he felt his skin crawl at the knowledge that lay within that gaze.

“An Orion was killed.”

-

There was a tension to Jim’s shoulders that hadn’t been there when the two of them had parted the previous night.

Then, his hands had fit themselves to Jim’s waist, and the other man had buried his own in the dark strands of Spock’s hair. Their mouths had pressed together in a hungry slide, unobstructed as only lovers could be with their public display of intimacy, and there had been barely any space between the lengths of their bodies. His skin had been alight with the passion that the other man seemed to have bathed in, and he had burned with it after he had nudged Jim into his apartment doorway, had ached with it the entire way home.  

Now, the symphony house was to be their safe haven, it seemed. Privately owned, the owners were gracious enough to open their doors to students who desired a little privacy when they were to practice. All the same, it was formally reserved for the more lavish recitals, with its satin seats and velvet curtains; the artfully designed boxes that climbed the walls. They were alone though, since no one cared to practice anything in the morning on a Monday, and it seemed that he was not the only one who was grateful for the privacy.

There was a sharp frustration in the way Jim moved and nothing remained of the loose-limbed man that had arched on Spock’s bed, fingers tangled within his black sheets and his lips releasing a broken, pleasured cry. That man was gone, though the passion displayed was nearly as strong as it had been. Jim moved across the stage with a brilliant sort of ferocity that Spock had never witnessed before. Everything about the man was alive with a violent energy, from the quick motions that his hands made across the neck of his viola and the bow where he drew it across the strings, to the way that his bare feet danced across the floor.

His hair was a small tail of gold once more and it was a marvel, the way his clothes failed to restrict his rapid movements. No position was held for long, there was no languid romance to any leap, point or bend that the slender man executed and, instead, Jim seemed to burn under the flood lights with an energy of his own.

A slight turn showed that Nyota was just as entranced with the sight as he was, for she had moved herself to be of some use. Carefully, she had pushed at the piano, back behind the curtain, clearing as much of the stage as she could for Jim to use. Her own body swayed, caught within the sharp tempo of sound he created, and her body leaned into it, as if yearning to join the man in his dance.

The sight was lost from him though, as Leonard positioned himself between Spock and the two on stage. The customary scowl that the man wore was different, not as sharp, more concerned, though that concern was aimed at something other than Jim for once. It was with a start that Spock realized it was for him, the sharp concern and the unwavering resolve that the other man wore had been extended to include an alien that he barely knew.

The honor of such a show of friendship was staggering.

“What did you do?”

Eyes narrowing, Spock’s back straightened, but the inch of height he had on the man suddenly felt as if it had lost a mile. Bright hazel eyes watched him with a dark kind of understanding, and there was something familiar and savage in the way that the other man held himself, only for a moment before it was gone.

“I ain’t blaming you for nothin’, Spock, we all take drastic measures when we’re in love. But I can’t help you if I don’t know what you did.”

It was so simple then, to gaze upon the other man. There was a question that wanted to slip from his tongue, for he was curious to know what that darkness in the other man’s eyes had meant. What crimes had Leonard committed in what he considered the name of love? There would be no answers to such a question though, because he knew no way to ask and, by the look on the other man’s face, it was wise to keep his questions to himself.

“I presume you already know, Leonard.”

“Humor me, Spock.”

One brow lifting, he stared at the brunette man for a moment. It gained him nothing though, for the other man refused to back down, and instead, he sighed.

“I killed them.”

The words were simple things as they dripped from his tongue, losing themselves in the air with their poison and their promise. Such simple words, yet the weight of them was a heavy thing, and it was an offsetting revelation, to find that there was a weight lifted from his shoulders with the utterance of them. His body felt lighter, stomach less tight, and Spock found that he stood straighter without them.  

Leonard’s eyes were bright on him, and there was a sharp sort of smile on his face once more, a twisting thing that seemed just as dark as the first one had been.

“I killed them.”

There was a slight hue of wonder in his tone the second time around.

“That you did. Mind telling me how?”

Glancing toward Jim, he caught the way that the music had stopped, though it seemed that their conversation had still gone unheard.  Instead, Jim had placed his viola back within its case, and Nyota had taken his hands in hers. Despite their reasons for being within each other’s company once more, the two of them didn’t seem to mind. Instead, Spock was rewarded with the booming sound of Jim’s laughter as it filled the air, Nyota leading him into something that looked suspiciously like an old Terran swing routine.

“The Orion suffered from a broken neck, nothing more.”

Standing beside him, Leonard gave a nod. He wasn’t the only one soothed by the sight of their friends dancing about as they did on the stage floor. They stood in silence for a moment, watching the blind man and the dark skinned woman where they twirled around one another.

“And the other?”

“Did you know, that if you manage to stimulate the nervous system and its organs, a creature is capable of living long enough to experience the agony of you ripping out its heart?” 

The dancers places were shifted, it seemed, for Nyota had taken the lead in their motions. In a rapid swirl, their feet tangled seamlessly together, shifting their weight around and sending the two into a perfectly synchronized dance. Jim didn’t seem to mind though, not if the smile on his face and his quick steps meant anything. Nyota slipped her hand along his waist, pulling Jim with her before the two of them dipped in a wide arch. Head falling back, mouth falling open, even from the great distance, Spock could see the bright blue of Jim’s blind eyes.

“Is that so?”

Jim’s laughter boomed through the auditorium, bright as the sun, and that chill that had planted itself in Spock’s stomach at the sight of the news reel thawed.

-

The company had lasted for hours, until Jim had let out a jaw cracking yawn. Quickly, Nyota had stopped their dancing, the two of them having found a second wind half an hour before. Leonard and Spock had both pulled away from the PADD they had been using to sift through the news reports. Jim had attempted to wave them off, the way that Nyota had stopped their motions, and how Leonard had collected his shoes, but it had been pointless.

Spock had tangled their fingers together, brushing a kiss across Jim’s lips before they had parted, and that had been that.

His home had been quiet when he had returned, and at any other time he would have found the silence pleasant. Such soundlessness could be used for meditation, for practice or homework even. Without the sound of Jim’s laughter, Nyota’s singing or the hum of Leonard’s voice, however, the stillness seemed… cold.

He hadn’t allowed the silence to last, turning his terminal on and letting it play through his collection of music. He had yet to frequent _The Fringe_ , wouldn’t allow himself and he knew that he would need to find a new location with which to entertain himself. Perhaps, if he found luck, then Jim would be willing to accompany him to such a place.

There was no desire for sustenance in his stomach, yet tea sounded appealing, and he pulled out the kettle from over the sink with a slow sway in his hips. The music was similar to that which he had heard before when frequenting the club, and though the ambiance was far from the same, the sounds were enough to set a pleasant roll through his body. Lazy motions as he went through the process of making water for tea, pulling down his favored mug with a drawn out motion that would have scandalized him before his time spent on earth.

The kettle clicked off when it was ready, and it was a habitual movement to pour it over the leaves of tea where they were secured in the metallic ball. Quickly, the water turned dark, and he took a deep breath at the scent that lifted from the cup. Eyes closing, Spock bent his body so that his elbows were upon the counter, hanging his head so he could simply inhale the steam from the tea for a few moments.

A chirp filled the air before the music from his terminal turned off, a chiming sound filling the air instead, and he lifted his head at the tone.

“Spock!”

“Yes, Jim?”

There was no need for alarm, regardless of the sharpness to Jim’s voice, because the way his name had been cried was a pleasant thing. There was excitement there, within his mate’s voice, and the visual privacy that he knew he had allowed a faint smile to draw to his lips. Gathering his mug, the ceramic warm in his hands, Spock swayed still as he crossed into the living room to curl into his desk chair.

“Guess what!”

Lips curving further, he shook his head just enough that his hair shifted in its place upon his head before humoring the other man.

“What?”

The expression on Jim’s face could only be described as a grin, a wide display of white teeth and pink lips that threatened to split his face in half. His gaze was off, finding the screen but missing Spock himself by a mile, and he found that he didn’t mind that much in that moment. It was a gift, to be able to gaze upon Jim in his happiness, for the emotion looked radiant as it colored his skin.

“Pike gave me permission to do a symphony project!”

Jim could not see, and there appeared to be no one else in the room with him, meaning there was no one to witness the way that Spock jarred in his chair. The leg he had been bracing his arms on slipped as his body straightened, sliding to the floor with a quiet thud that seemed to go unnoticed. It would have mattered not even if Jim _had_ noticed, for Spock wouldn’t have explained. Instead, he stared at his mate with a wide eyed expression of awe, unsure of what to say for a moment.

“Indeed?”

His answer must have been sufficient, for Jim’s grin seemed to stretch farther across his face. His fingers went up, pushing at his golden hair where bits of it had fallen from its tail, as though he needed to remove the strands from his forehead. It allowed Spock another chance to look at him, to listen to the excitement and the joy that filled his voice.

“I didn’t think I would actually get one, because you don’t get one of those when you’re a sophomore grad student. You only get those if you’re a senior grad like you, and I’ve been trying for the past two. I’ve been composing so many songs and doing so much work, and I didn’t think Pike had actually noticed, but I get to have a _crew_ and I have a deadline. Spock, I have a _deadline_!”

He seemed so enthralled with the notion of something that most students would have cringed at, and despite his initial startle, Spock found that he did indeed smile. It was a small, private thing that would only be for Jim it seemed, and he settled himself comfortably in his chair once. Body curling, legs pulled up within the chair, he bent enough so that he could rest his chin on one knee, gazing on Jim as much as he liked.

“Tell me about it.”

And so he did.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello darlings! I hope you beautiful loveys all had a wonderful Valentine's day~ My girlfriend made a really yummy risotto, with shrimp, onion, spinach and tomato, as well as an orange and spice panacotta! And oh, I have strep throat, so I'm been hating myself and drinking gallons of Gatorade and Lemon Tea.  
> Apart from that, here you go you gorgeous dears, have a new chapter, because you deserve it. Stay beautiful~

Jim had been overjoyed with his news, in a way that Spock had not previously witnessed, and even through the terminal screen, his excitement had burned.  His hands had moved in a flurry of motion as he spoke, and his eyes had been bright, glowing orbs of color on the other side of the connection.  Everything about him had been alive, in direct contrast to the way that he had been dulled by exhaustion when they had last parted.

They had made it to three in the morning before Spock had felt it necessary to send a message to Leonard, discreetly, and then he had simply waited and watched.  The other man had stumbled out from off screen, his face slack with fatigue but his eyes bright with the fever pitch of late night studying.  His hands had gone to his hips for a moment, and the brunette had shaken his head before giving Spock a bit of a wave.

“Say ‘good night’, Jim.”

“Good night, Jim!” his beloved had parroted promptly, and the amusement that Spock had felt left his lips, in a slight huff.  Just as quickly, Leonard gave a sharp grin at the back of the blond man’s head, and missed the way that his sightless eyes darted with confusion.  “Wait, what the fu-“

The connection had flickered out, and Spock had been left staring at a blank terminal screen, far more amused than he had right to be at three-twenty in the morning.

-

If Spock hadn’t known better, he would have guessed that Jim had been planning this for some time.

The call out message had flashed across every single PADD that connected itself to the campus net; overriding all personal security measures that any student might have put in place. Bold black text, a clear image outlining the time and location of the meet, as well as all the other details and, for a moment, Spock had been able to forget that Jim couldn’t see.  Instead, he had been left to wonder how the human had managed the feat, as he set a reminder for himself to find Jim after class.

Other students in his class had not been as collected as he, in dealing with the interruption, and he had been given a ‘show’ in the way that the small sample of the student body had all jolted. Various ring tones sang out in the room, cutting off the professor, who looked far from impressed. At ease within his own seat, Spock watched the rolling wave of scrambling motion that overtook his classmates, their fingers delving into book bags and purses, pulling out PADDs that blinked brightly.

“... the hell is this?’”

“Wait, what did Kirk do?”

“No way! How the hell did he get this?”

A swirl of whispering chatter overtook the room then, and whatever the professor had wished to discuss was lost under the weight of excited voices and questions.  Legs crossed comfortably, Spock kept to himself, at his desk, and amusement made his body feel warm in response to their reactions. He was impressed, for he couldn’t begin to think of just what Jim had done to be able to bypass the security systems in such a manner.

“I’m sure that whatever Mr Kirk has done is very entertaining, but this is a classroom, not a Caitian barber shop.”  Grey hair pushed back along his head, the professor watched the class with the same shrewd expression that he had worn before the interruption. It was obvious though, in the set of his mouth and the wrinkling around his eyes, that even he was impressed with Jim’s electronic actions, albeit against his better judgment.  “Save your gossip for the quad.”

The buzz died down then, as if it had never started, and Spock was once more left to his own devices within the lesson. The material was dry, even by his Vulcan standards, and he found his mind wandering to the remembered sound of Jim’s laughter the previous night; the message that he had sent out today. There was a chance that his T’hy’la hadn’t even slept, not with the amount of excitement that the younger man had been showing at the notion of a symphony project.

He, Jim, deserved this accolade; had worked long hours from what Spock inferred. The talent that the viola player possessed was unmatched by any other performer that he had yet witnessed, and his ambition exceeded that talent.  Jim’s fingers were callused things; the PADD he currently carried only one in a series of nearly three dozen full of original compositions that he had put together over the years.

The class couldn’t end quickly enough, for Spock, as he found that he was impatient to return to his mate’s side. Gathering his things when the lesson was dismissed, he slotted his PADD back into his satchel, and checked the time with a quick glance to the front of the room. Sliding out from behind his desk, the familiar chirping sounds of his communicator hit the air, and the device was extracted with a raised eyebrow, followed by an amused sigh.

“Yes, Leonard?”

“Are you allowed to take drinks into the auditorium?”

Lips pursed for a moment, he caught the way that another student had decided to stare. The expression he was given was a wide, startled thing, as if the human was confused by the notion of a Vulcan having friends.  

It was with a flash of Pre-Reform malevolence that Spock bared his teeth at the human. 

“Not usually, but exceptions are made from time to time.”

A bit of a sigh sounded in his ear and he knew, without having to see, that Leonard’s head was dipping in approval.  Already, Spock suspected what was going to be asked of him, and yet he found he did not mind the potential inconvenience. Instead, he watched out of the corner of his eye as the human student that he had engaged with practically leapt out of his way, giving Spock a clear path to the door.

“Good. Get yourself some brownie points; pick lover boy up an iced, half caff, Ristretto, large, four-pump classic, three-pump cinnamon, dolce soy skinny latte.”

“I beg your pardon?”

There was laughter then, because Leonard would, of course, be the type of friend to find his confusion amusing.  That laughter, and Leonard’s voice, stayed with him through the crowded hallways on his way out of the building.

“The coffee shop’s off of 4th; it’s on the way to the auditorium.  Don’t have a damn clue how he found the place, or why he knows that order.  If you can’t remember it, just say you’re getting an order for Jim; the baristas all know it by heart.  You shouldn’t have to specify that it needs to be iced, but if her nametag says ‘Frieda’, do it just to be safe.  He burned himself once, because of her, and I don’t want it to happen again.”

The outside air was pleasant, far warmer than it had been the day before, even. Already, on the quad, there was a gathering body of students; no doubt preparing for another protest. He could see and hear them, from where he stood on the steps to the international building, with their holo-signs and their raised voices. Their garbled, indignant words meant nothing to him, though, and regardless of the fact that they didn’t know he was responsible for their deaths, their uneducated defense of the deceased sex traders brought a short lived twist to Spock’s lips.

 “This is a beverage that Jim desires, Leonard?”

“It’s a beverage that Jim’s going to _need_ , if he wants to stay awake through these auditions.”

-

The lobby to the auditorium was as full as it had ever been, with any production Spock had seen. The students that filled the floor were all in various states of dress, and many of them looked as though they had come straight from class. The decibel level of their voices, within the confined space, set a slight ringing between his ears and Spock closed his eyes for a moment against it, as his hand tightened around Jim’s drink.

Still, he respected them for the semblance of order that they had taken on, despite their sheer number, for there was a vague line that had formed… snaking through the lobby and up the stairs. Head high, Spock ignored the way that they watched him as he strode past them, drink still in hand and his satchel over his shoulder. The door opened automatically under his touch, and the air within the auditorium was quieter than the lobby, if only just.

The girl standing on stage was a small thing, and her voice was just the same: thin and reed-like, as if she couldn’t find the energy within herself to be any more powerful.

Gliding down the ramp, he saw that somebody had given Jim a table, though its presence was hardly necessary. His boyfriend had a stack of PADD’s before him, and his posture was straight, focus as caught on the stage as it could be. Still, he managed to hear Spock coming, for his blond head turned, and bright eyes tried to find him through their darkness.

“Hey, babe!” The affectionate term was one that Jim had first uttered in the throes of passion and, yet, Spock found that he didn’t mind hearing it in the younger man’s normal candor. “I thought you had class?”

The seat beside Jim was empty, and it was easy to lower himself into it. The drink that he held was settled well within Jim’s reach, with a quiet clacking sound, and his dark eyes watched the way that his lovers head tipped at the sound. Relaxing into the soft velvet seat, Spock hesitated for a moment before slipping an arm over the back of Jim’s chair in the same possessive manner that he had witnessed Leonard display with Nyota.

If the way Jim smiled when he leaned back meant anything, Spock had done well.

On stage, the girl was still trying to impress, though her voice barely reached them. Several minutes of listening to her went by, and it was obvious to see the way that her nerves made her body flush under the flood lights. Her skin had turned a pale yellow under the blue hue, and her fingers clenched into tight fists as she seemed to fight the urge to sway in place.

Finally, as if taking pity on her, Jim raised a hand, and the girl instantly fell silent.

“Thank you, you sound very… Victorian; Adriana Caselotti would be very proud. Could you send in the next one, please?” 

The hopeful expression on her face fell, and her head bobbed with a nod that Jim wouldn’t see. Still, Spock watched her as she went, the downward tilt to her lips and the way that her head hung heavy on her neck.  Fingers twitched, his nails scratched gently across Jim’s scalp, and the slender man let out a quiet moan even as he reached out carefully for his drink.

“How many have you seen thus far?”

Straw between his lips, Jim shrugged, rolling his head on Spock’s shoulder.

“Whatever the number is on that PADD?  Oh my god, did you seriously stand in line at _The Caffinary_ for me?”

Amused, Spock listened to the quiet sounds of pleasure that came from his lover even as he reached across the table. His free hand found the aforementioned PADD; the number displayed upon it made his grasp tighten and his eyes widen. After a moment, he turned his head to gaze at Jim, still just as startled.

“Is this number accurate?”

“Yup.”

“ _Ashayam_ ,” he began gently, suddenly understanding what Leonard had meant by Jim’s _need_ of caffeine, “the number upon this PADD is two hundred fourteen.”  He was left with a worried sort of wonder of just how long Jim had been at his activities; he doubted if Jim had even attended his own classes, for none of his course materials were present in any of the PADDs.

“Oh, trust me, I know.  I’ve gone through all of those, and none of them sound right. They’re too soft or they’re too sharp, none of them have the right… _oomph_.” 

Brows lifting, Spock turned a fraction so that he could stare down at his lover. Jim’s hands were in motion, the drink back on the table without any bump to slosh the liquid, and he seemed perfectly content. His face was alive with a sort of frustrated energy and the desire was there, to reach out and take Jim’s hands within his own, to calm those darting fingers.

_“Oomph?”_

Those full lips quirked at him, but Jim nodded seriously, all the same.

“Yeah, ‘oomph’! They all sound fine, in their own way, but none of them have any soul. They aren’t singing the words like they mean it; they’re just so… empty.”

“They are not talented enough?”

A quiet sputtering sound hit the air, spilling from between Jim’s full lips. Spock adjusted slightly as the slighter man leaned back farther into him, taking Jim’s weight with a pleased, silent sigh. His fingertips still lost in those golden strands, he caught fleeting brushes of exhaustion and frustration with every pass.

“They don’t have any soul, Spock.  I can’t have someone singing my songs if they don’t sound like they mean it.”

Nodding quietly, he watched as Jim’s attention turned then to the singer waiting impatiently upon the stage. The young man cleared his throat loudly, though he didn’t start his piece once he had their attention.  Instead, he simply stood there, for he did not seem to understand why Jim would not look directly at him. Eyes narrowing, Spock watched the man until he finally started to sing, upon which he fought the urge to close his eyes against the sounds.

Fishing his communicator out of his pocket, he tapped out a quick message, sending it off silently before the man had even finished his first verse.

“Stop.”

Despite Jim’s call, the man kept singing. His dark eyes were narrowed on them, and his skin was bleached the pasty white of a species that Spock didn’t care to recall. Despite this, the man’s origins were obvious in the spikes along his face, and the Jem’hadar male continued on. The rudeness that he displayed by ignoring the call was enough to have Spock tensing, prepared to rise out of his seat.

“I said ‘stop’.”

“I wasn’t finished.”

His sharp chin was raised at Jim, as if in challenge. The fight was one he would lose, though, for under his fingers Spock felt Jim’s emotions swell in a sudden, bitter storm. Beneath his touch, the slender man stirred, and the bite of his frustration was a crude thing that licked at Spock’s nerves.

 “I don’t give a flying fuck if you weren’t finished.” Jim’s voice was as cool and calm as Spock had ever heard it; as if he were discussing a topic that bored him, rather than the man’s lack of respect for authority. The hand that had dropped to Spock’s leg - somehow he hadn’t noticed it, as if it were an easy thing to miss, the warmth of Jim’s hand against his jeans - twisted in the denim there; nails biting through the thick fabric. “I tell you to stop, you stop. And now I’m telling you to get the fuck out of my audition, and don’t make me tell you twice. You really, _really_ , won’t like me if I have to repeat myself.”

Face flushing, the man dropped off the stage with a loud sound, stalking past them with his fists clenched.

“Tell the others to hold, I’ll send for them when I’m ready.”

The door swished shut, the man taking Jim’s words with him, and it was only once the silence had settled upon them again that his lover relaxed. With a groan, his head fell onto Spock’s shoulder, and Jim turned his head until the tip of his nose brushed along the thin skin of the Vulcan’s throat. Shivering slightly at the cold contact, he pulled the human closer to him, basking in the easy way that Jim rested against him.

“Can we go home, now?”

The question was spoken as if the two of them shared the same household, as if their destination every night were the same. Yet Spock knew that was not the case, for the pillow beside his own was empty even though it still smelled of Jim, and there were no fingerprint smudges across every surface in his home.  Still, the idea of it was an appealing thing, one that settled something inside of him even as it caused the possessiveness in his Vulcan blood to stir.

Twisting his head, Spock pressed his lips against the smooth expanse of Jim’s forehead, taking a slow breath of his lovers scent.

“No, Jim.”

Silence settled upon them, for the human seemed content to stay where he was. His body was curled in the seat, in a manner that should have been uncomfortable, with one leg pulled up and his foot braced against the arm of the chair. Jim didn’t seem to mind though, for he simply leaned into Spock as if the night they had spent apart had been a year, keeping himself as close to the Vulcan as he could manage.

The silence that had taken them lasted for nearly twenty minutes.

“No wonder you didn’t want to share!  Lookit this little cutie!”

Beneath his arm, Jim startled, his sightless eyes opening and his head twisting about. It was only with a quick jerk of his own head that Spock managed to keep their foreheads from cracking together. Instead, he turned slightly, finding Gaila where she stood in all her emerald glory. The grin upon her lips was a ferocious thing, and the woman only paused for a moment before striding down the ramp toward them.

“I’m sorry,” said Jim,” I wasn’t expecting another audition at the moment?”

“Oh sweetie, you didn’t ask for me- big boy green here did. My, my, you have gorgeous eyes on you; what a looker you are.”

The bashful look on Jim’s face was one that Spock found he approved of, and he watched out of the corner of his eye as Gaila situated herself on the back of a chair in front of them. Legs crossed delicately, her curvaceous body balanced on the thin arch of the chair back with a natural sort of ease, and the white lace of her tights stretched thin across her legs. Her tumble of curls was pinned up in a fly-away pile upon her head, and the smile that she gave the two of them suddenly softened around the edges.

“Will you let me sing for you, blue-eyes?”

Jim gave her a smile in response, as if he could hear the tilt to her lips within her question, and Spock felt a tension that he hadn’t known he had, relax.

“If you would be so kind, Madame…?”

“Vro.  Gaila Vro, but you can call me whatever you want, blue-eyes.”

Her emerald fingers reached out with a slight curl, and the smile she gave Spock was a delighted thing. Her nails caught Jim under the jut of his chin, just firmly enough to cause his face to tip forward, and then her lips were moving, voice spilling over them in a soft, crooning whorl of sound.  Like liquid smoke, that sound poured from her vocal cords; one shoulder lifted as Gaila caroled to Jim in her sultry alto tones, and the soft blue of her oversized sweater dipped down to her elbow, clinging to the top curve of her breasts.

Leaning forward, Jim’s body made an aborted motion to follow her when she pulled her hand away, and the twist to her lips turned into something wicked then.  Leaning back, her hands braced on the chair backs on either side of her, and with a toss of her head Gaila continued to sing. The curls that weren’t pinned back bounced slowly across her shoulders, framing her face for a moment before they continued to sway with the motion.

Softly, her voice ended with a slow note, as drawn out and sultry as the first one had been, and from beside him, Spock could hear Jim breathing.

“Tell the others to go home, please.”

Gaila’s dark green lips stretched into an even wider grin then, one that brought dimples to her cheeks, and her voice was a purr.

“Of course.”

-

The sound of his front door clicking shut behind him was enough for him to allow himself to relax once more.

He had had to leave them, huddled as they were in their new spot on the stage floor. Jim had tipped his head for a kiss, fingers tangling in the hair at the back of Spock’s head, and it had only been a loud cat-call from Gaila that had torn the two of them apart. The woman had given them her best grin, though, hardly ashamed of herself for interrupting them.

Fingers carding carelessly through his own hair, bangs pulled back from his forehead, Spock basked in the privacy of his home, allowing a faint smile to stretch across his lips.  Eyes sliding shut, his head tipped back, low laughter rumbling from within his chest at the memory of Jim’s delight.  Pleasure and pride set a satisfied sort of warmth in his side, around his heart, and Spock absorbed the feeling in an act of self-indulgence.

**“Spock.”**

The blessed silence of his living room was shattered, the privacy a farce, and his father’s face stared back at him from the terminal screen, sharp Vulcan features blank as ever.

 


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here you go lovies! Teaching myself how to crochet, I have respect for all the little old ladies who do this for a living, oh my god. So, thought I'd tell you beautiful people, I have a new thing that I'm working on, because new story, and it wont be out for another few chapters of this, but I'd love it if yall would give it a try when it comes out! Otherwise, enjoy and stay beautiful!

_Fingers carding carelessly through his own hair, bangs pulled back from his forehead, Spock basked in the privacy of his home, allowing a faint smile to stretch across his lips.  Eyes sliding shut, his head tipped back, low laughter rumbling from within his chest at the memory of Jim’s delight.  Pleasure and pride set a satisfied sort of warmth in his side, around his heart, and Spock absorbed the feeling in an act of self-indulgence._

**_“Spock.”_ **

_The blessed silence of his living room was shattered, the privacy a farce, and his father’s face stared back at him from the terminal screen, sharp Vulcan features blank as ever._

-

The warmth of his amusement turned cold then, and the pleasant furl of emotion lost itself behind his shields in a quick act of evasiveness. There was no point in trying to save face, for his father had already seen his scandalous display of emotion, but that didn’t stop him from the attempt.  It had been a mistake, to leave the connection open from his time spent on the news feed at the start of his day, for his father had simply hacked his way past the security setting, it seemed.  

Back straightening, posture taking a stance that was as disciplined as he could ever manage, Spock returned his father’s stare with a cool look of his own. It was startling, to find that such a gaze was difficult to give, after the way that he had embraced his humanity with Jim and his friends within the past few months.  It had been some time since Spock had felt nervous around his father, too used to the man’s stark displeasure to be as affected by the downward tilt of his brows as he had been as a child and yet the nerves were there, mixed with a sort of frustration that was difficult to identify at first, for he had not expected the invasion of his privacy and did not favor being caught unaware in such a manner.

“Father.”

His voice was a calm, a far cry from the knot that had seemed to form in his throat, his stomach. Emotion was something that his father had never embraced; so set was he in the teachings of Surak that it had often puzzled Spock, as a child, the relationship that had flourished between his parents. The emotion that he felt was something that would have made his mother proud but, as it was, it now only made him burn with an unfamiliar sort of shame.

“If you would take a seat.”  His father spoke the words as if they were a suggestion, although it was obvious that they were far from it. Propositions were a thing that Sarek rarely made; instead, his words were honey-glazed orders that were often too softly spoken to be disobeyed.  He simply expected compliance and, as a high member of the Vulcan Council and an Ambassador, such a response was what he generally received.  “It has been brought to my attention that there are recent events which we must discuss.”

Spock was no longer a child, and he would not blindly obey in hopes of gaining even an intimation of approval from his father.

Head tilting slightly to one side, he felt the less than subtle motion in the way that his bangs shifted across his forehead. Hands resting by his sides, Spock watched his father for just long enough to take in the man’s carefully, artfully concealed irritation. It was with similarly concealed irritation that he moved his hands to clasp them behind his back, holding himself in a purely Vulcan way, for the time being.

“I would prefer to stand.  I did not anticipate a call, Father, may I inquire as to the matter of your concern?”

There was disapproval there, in the line of his father’s mouth, the darkness of his eyes, and Spock embraced its familiarity, as he would a gentle touch from his mother, for it seemed to be just as common as her affection ever was.  

His father’s study was a brightly lit space, with orange light streaming in from the round window which, Spock was aware, lay just out of the terminal’s view. The bookshelf behind his desk was filled with ancient texts that told of their family lineage; it covered the wall from ceiling to floor and Spock knew that, if he tried, he could imagine the scent of the volumes, their texture.  Such indulgences were not currently allowed, though, for it was obvious that this was not a courtesy call.

Deftly, Spock clicked a button on the side of the desk to record the call, for T’Pring would surely have his head if she missed what was about to unfold.

“Your mother has brought it to my attention that you aspire to court a human male. Her happiness on the topic is to be expected, and I cannot fault her for her emotional response.  It has also been pointed out to me that there have been two murders near campus, which happened under enigmatic conditions. While your mother has doubt over the necessity of this conversation, I find that I must question if the deaths are as unrelated to your circumstance as she believes.  I had hoped, as your father, that her view would be correct and that you would indeed be innocent of the acts, but I have felt an anger in you through our familial bond that leads me to believe otherwise. ”  

It had been some time since he had last spoken to his father and, as such, Spock had forgotten the way that the older man could bend common speech to his will. The words he spoke were emotionless things, deceptive in their crisp, Vulcan calm. It was only from experience that Spock could sense the dissatisfaction expelled alongside each breath; the contempt that dripped from each syllable.

Fingers clenching, Spock let the silence lie between them, and his lack of action caused a sort of impatience within his father; something unshielded that he saw in the way that his father’s eyes bore into his own. It was with a start that he found the customary position that he held to be uncomfortable, though there was no room for hesitation, not with his current audience. So he shifted, letting the majority of his weight balance on one leg, and it showed in the curve of his hip. Furthermore, to extend his own comfort, Spock slid his hands forward, allowing his fingertips to delve into the depths of his pockets, and his elbows to bend. 

“What is it that you wish me to say, Father?”

One brow lifted, Sarek stared at his son with Vulcan contempt.

“The truth, Spock.”

“I took the lives of two non-human male individuals, an Orion and a Denobulan, both of which were involved in a sex slave ring. The aim of this organization is to abduct humans who fit the achievable requirements.  I disabled the Orion quickly, his life was gone before he knew he was in danger, though I made the Denobulan suffer for his actions. I do not regret what I have done.”

A muscle in his father’s jaw twitched under the skin, one of the only visible tells to show Sarek’s rage. The rest of his father’s face was as impassive as it had been at the beginning of their call, not a single hair out of place.  Faintly, Spock could hear music in the background, muffled by doors, and the soft sound of the cello and the double bass meant that his mother was in the kitchen.

“You are quite forthcoming, regarding your delinquencies.”

Head tilting once more, Spock rocked a little, the tumble of nerves in his belly making him feel slightly ill.

“Would you rather that I lie to you, father? I have been informed recently that it does not matter what crimes are committed, so long as they are born out of love.” His words drew a scoff from his father, and Spock’s brows drew down at the audible response. There was a faint amusement there, in Sarek’s eyes, and its presence made him uneasy in a way that little else could. He wished that his father did not affect him so, that his approval did not matter, but with his approval came his mother’s happiness, and such a thing was precious.

“This human has taught you nothing of love.”

“His name is Jim.”

The way that his father looked at him then set a bitter burn within his gut. There was a tightness there, brought about by a sort of protective rage that he had only previously experienced upon finding Jim beaten and bloody. His father was hardly a threat, but the careless way with which Sarek seemed prepared to discard Spock’s chosen mate set Spock’s blood boiling.

“Your human, and your love, have no standing in the House of Surak.”

Spock’s jaw clenched, his tongue felt thick within his mouth, and he had experienced the pounding rush of liquid in his ears enough times now to understand that it was the echo of his own heartbeat.  Fingers falling away from his jeans, his hands tightened into fists and his eyes narrowed upon the image of his father.  Such disrespect against his mate would not be allowed.

"How is my relationship with Jim any different than your own, with mother?  Does _your_ human have no standing in the House of Surak? Surely, if you put weight in her happiness, you would defend her honor?”

It was obvious that he had struck a nerve, for his father straightened in his seat further still and his eyes narrowed through the screen and that was good; Spock reveled in the thought that he had put his father in such a position. His father wanted to challenge his claim; surely he had every right to bring his parents’ bond into question on the same grounds?

"The difference between the two, Spock, is that my mate brought much with her when she was welcomed to the House."

"Your habitual lack of interest in my affairs leaves me with no illusion that you know of the gifts that Jim has to offer the House."

"His disability holds much sway against him."

Drawing back as if he had been struck, Spock saw his father and the things around him through a thin green film. The rage that he felt was a brilliant thing, just as sharp and crude to the senses as Jim’s own had been only a few hours previously. There was a difference, though, for this was not simply a man being disrespectful because he apparently knew no better: this was a highly respectable man, an _Ambassador_ , degrading another life form, finding them unworthy due to circumstances that were out of their control.

He had not believed his father to be so shallow.

"You would hold the effects of a transgression against him?"

There was a breath there, a chance for his father to make right with his next words.  Spock’s own speech sounded breathless, even to his own ears, the words strained where they left his tongue.  Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations meant nothing, then, and every principle of acceptance he had been raised with was a lie.

"He is inadequate, yet you have taken two lives in his name.  As such, it falls upon me as your father to inform you that the House will not support your affair with Mr Kirk. "

Spock’s rage was justified, then, just as the lives that he had taken to keep Jim safe were. What right did his father have to judge his mate in such a way, to claim that Jim was not worthy?  Rolling his tongue along the back of his teeth, Spock paused only long enough to try to compose himself, although the attempt was not reflected in the harsh tone of the words that followed.

"You speak as if I require your approval."

"It is logical."

Yet, that logic meant nothing. There was no point in a life that aspired to logic and reason if he could not embrace the newfound freedom that came with understanding his emotions.  Nyota had introduced him to joy and Gaila had given him patience; Leonard had challenged his wit, with his sarcasm alone, and Jim had opened his eyes to a side of himself that he had not previously imagined to exist.

Such freedom and expression went against the Vulcan way, and he had seen the way that his mother subdued herself outside of the walls of their estate, almost as if the things that he loved about her no longer existed.

"Then you may keep your logic, for I find that I have no need for it. You scorn me for wishing to take a man whom you claim has nothing to offer the House and yet, it is his character and acceptance of _all_ that he is that makes me desire to better myself. He gives me light as if he were the sun, and his mind calms mine in a way that I did not know I required.  I burn for him as if I were within the fires of _plak tow_ , yet I am more aware of myself than I have ever been."

Standing now as he pleased, Spock straightened slowly, though his fingertips had delved into his pockets once more. The conviction that dripped from each word felt like a blessing, a promise, for they were true. He would crawl on his knees for Jim if the other man asked him to, just as he would take the life of another just to keep his lover safe. There was no price too great, and if it cost him his position in the House of Surak, then so be it.

"You would take him still, even though I do not approve?"

"You make keep your approval, along with your logic, Father, for I quote my mate when I say that I don’t give a damn for it.  He is _T'hy'la_ and I would crawl through The Forge simply to see him smile."

It felt better than he had expected, to curl his tongue around the sharp words. His speech was muted in comparison to the things that he had heard his lover say, and yet it came more easily to him than he had expected.  The raised eyebrow that he received was well worth the effort, although Spock found that he did not care to try to understand which of his words caused the expression.

"You have your mother’s poetic soul."

Slouching slightly once more, the shift in posture would have gone unnoticed by a human, for there was really nothing to see. Yet his father noticed, just as he had noticed every change in position, for the behavior was unbecoming for a Vulcan.  Spock would not allow himself to feel shame though, not in the wake of the things that had been said, and so his shoulders danced in a flowing, indecent shrug.

"I am sorry that this displeases you."

The expression upon his father’s face was one that he had not seen before, for Sarek had never looked at him in such a fashion.  It took longer than it should have, then, for him to understand that it was not displeasure on the Vulcan’s face; it was something else entirely.  His father smiled upon him, a subtle, proud thing that would have been easy to miss, and yet it spoke more than any words could have, and Spock found himself at a loss.

"On the contrary, Spock, this brings me much joy, for it means you are worthy of the gift of his love and he of yours."

-

It had been his father’s insistence, then, that he explain fully to Jim what he had done.  Any hesitation Spock had shown on the matter had been quickly put to rest, for Sarek had assured his son that such things would be handled as anything of their nature was. Diplomatic immunity was a marvelous thing and, calmly, the older Vulcan male had promised to tell him the story of how Sarek had maimed a human male, in his younger years, for laying a hand on Amanda; the action that had sparked their courtship.

-

He was becoming more and more familiar with the feeling of nerves, the fluttering in his stomach that was as unsettling as any other strange emotion he had dealt with. He was learning, though, and while Spock was proud of himself for that, he still wished that such things did not feel so foreign to him.  He had to ‘take the good with the bad’, though, as T’Pring had once informed him, or the experience he gained would hardly be worth the effort he expended.

Leonard must have recognized something about the expression on his face, for the brunette had simply clicked his tongue before letting Spock into the apartment that he and Jim shared. A glass of half-sipped Bourbon sat on the coffee table, while the outfit Leonard wore spoke of the fact that he had not planned to stay at home for long. The offered glass of drinking chocolate had been politely declined while Spock combed through his brain to try and remember if Nyota had mentioned a date, only to feel a flush of shame when he realized that he could not recall any such discussion with his friend.

A few words had passed through the air, things that he was too distracted to catch, and so he was startled by the sight of Jim as he emerged from the hall.

His golden hair was wet, spiraling from his head in lazy ringlets that dripped where they lay, drizzling water onto the bare skin of Jim’s shoulders and chest. He glistened with moisture, lithe muscles rippling as his hands worked the towel through his hair, and his body was arched with a form that only came with relaxation. He was sensual, stunning, though the bright pink shorts decorated with green and yellow dancing cacti tried their best to shatter the image.

“Hey, handsome,” Jim had no way of knowing if his words were true, for he had not ever seen Spock’s face with his own eyes, but his fingers had often mapped his flesh during their intimate, private moments.  Spock’s gut clenched at the thought that there may be no more of those precious times, for Jim may turn from him when he learned of what had been done.  “Wasn’t expecting you tonight, I would have gussied up!”

Taking Jim’s fingers within his own, Spock let himself experience the pleasure of brushing a Vulcan kiss over the back of the other man’s digits. Content hummed beneath Jim’s skin, and his body glowed golden with it, sending a faint thrum across Spock’s own _katra_.

“You are perfect, T’hy’la.”

The grin he received in response to his words was a brilliant thing, and it was then that Spock decided to carry out their conversation on their feet.  Leonard had made himself scarce, within the apartment, giving the two of them privacy while still staying within reach. Really, that was all he could ask for, for he would rather Jim not be alone if his reaction was less than favorable.

“I have a confession I must make, Jim.”

The other man gave him no words, but simply turned his head a little to gaze up in his direction.  Still, even after months, Jim’s blue eyes failed to find his own, and it made him ache to know that they could not see him. Someday, perhaps, he would share with Jim the things that he saw; help Jim to once more view the world, with the aid of a meld.

Spock hesitated, allowing himself the moment of indulgence, for Jim was beautiful, and there was a chance that he would never be given the privilege to gaze upon the other man in such a fashion ever again. The thought of it made his heart throb, and yet he knew the risk was real.

“I am responsible for the deaths of the Denobulan and the Orion males, tales of which have been circulating the news bulletins.  After your attack, I took it upon myself to remove them, to keep you safe from further harm at their hands.”

The words were gone then, off his tongue and past his teeth, and the situation was now out of his control. Spock was completely at the mercy of the slighter man before him, with his dripping hair and his sightless eyes, and he had never felt so weak.  Breath caught in his throat, his heart pounded with a fearful sort of violence in his side, and he was unprepared for the expression that overtook Jim’s face.

It was the second time today that a smile had caught him off guard in such a way.

“I know, Spock.  I knew you would hurt them, but I didn’t know you had killed them until the riots started on campus. I like to think I’m smart-“

“You are surely one of the most intellectual humans I have ever met.”

A quiet laugh spilled from between Jim’s lips, and his pink tongue followed it to lick at the bottom bow of flesh, wetting it.  A simple habit, far from a nervous tick, and a glance down showed that Jim had yet to start to pick and peel at the skin on the sides of his thumbs. There was no trace of nerves or anxiety radiating from his warm skin, only understanding and faint amusement, and it was beautiful.

“Thank you. Anyway, I’m smart, and it wasn’t hard to put two and two together.”

“You are not angry?”

Blinking in an incredulous manner, Spock leaned back slightly to gaze in full at the other man. There was no anger though, for Jim was simply smiling at him, patient in a way that he had not known Jim to be capable of.  He was exquisite in the garish lighting of the living room, and Jim’s eyes were brilliant galactic pools that never ceased to fascinate him.

Jim shook his own hands free, and Spock felt a flash of panic that was quickly quashed, for Jim merely closed the distance between them, wrapping his arms around Spock’s shoulders so that he could rest his golden head upon Spock’s skin. His hair was damp where it tickled at his nose, but Spock didn’t hesitate in wrapping his own arms firmly around Jim’s waist, holding the human close.

“You saved my life, and you saved the lives of anyone that they would have taken in the future. I don’t think I could ever be angry about that.” The cool tip of his nose nudged against the line of Spock’s throat, and the Vulcan swallowed against the knot of emotion that had formed there. His dark eyes closed, and his arms only tightened around Jim with the human’s next words, heart thumping in his side. “I love you.”

“As I love you, _Ashayam._ ”

Jim let out a soft hum, the sound muffled by Spock’s shirt, and yet the human showed no signs of planning to release him. He simply held on, in turn, content to be allowed to hold his lover and satisfied that the other man would not be taken from him due to his actions.

“I _would_ like to speak to your parents, though, since you’ve already gotten the ‘shovel talk’ from Bones.”

There had been no discussion of gardening tools made, yet he knew what Jim spoke of, and a different sort of unease settled into his stomach.

“Of course.”


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello darlings! So, shameless self plugging, because I really love you all as readers and I appreciate you, and I would appreciate it if I could get a few opinions on a new story my beautiful Beta and I are working on? It's on my profile, and it's called Bang Bang, and its a Cougar/Jensen (The Losers) fic, but set in a mafia/Machiavellian world, and I'm pretty proud of myself with it. And even if you don't like it, I would like to know what you think, because I appreciate all the things that you guys tell me in the comments.  
> Alright, enough of that! Here you go you gorgeous darlings, have some Vulcan sass

The weeks had passed with little incident following those deeply difficult conversations, with the nerves he hadn’t known he had been capable of feeling settling and his mind calming itself.  Meditation had become manageable, again, and it was with a familiar ease that Spock found he could fall into that soft, swaying peace once more.  The quiet of his apartment still seemed too loud; a brash, brazen thing that dared impose on his comfort with its false sense of tranquility.  It was easier though, to pay it little mind, for the silence did not matter, and it was easy to mask. There was laughter in his heart and music in his ears, an echo that he heard every time he closed his eyes, and it settled the disquiet within.

The roar of campus had become something else, more manic than its usual rush, and it was only the steady influx and shuffle of bodies that reminded him that finals were on the way soon.  February had slipped away, as if falling into sleep, and March threatened to come and go with a blink for April was looming already. The warmer weather was a brilliant thing, and it felt good to be able to take in the sunlight upon his face, his arms, without bracing himself for the chill of the wind. There was more pleasure still, in seeing Jim bare footed with wet grass between his toes and a splitting grin upon his golden face.

The media had ‘slowed its roll’, as Jim would say, as far as the murders at _The Fringe_ were concerned. No further information had been released regarding the matter, and it had been lost in the rest of the ruckus that was life in bustling San Francisco. Spock had never worried for his own safety, knew without a doubt that he would have willingly accepted whatever repercussions came his way for his illegal actions, but there were none. The student body had grown bored with their protests, Professors had been far from lenient with the lack of attendance in their classes, and that had simply been that, it seemed.

Life had started to move on.

The previous week, he had been lifted without warning from his relaxation time, on the couch with Jim, in the humans’ apartment.  The other man had been half-asleep against his chest, fingers lazily drawing patterns upon the fabric of his shirt, and Spock had slowly woven his fingers through the strands of Jim’s hair. The feelings of peace and content that had cocooned them hadn’t lasted though, for Leonard had had other plans, stomping into the living room with a crazed look in his eyes.

Twenty minutes later, Spock had found himself being hustled out of the apartment, Jim sending a half-hearted wave in their direction from where he lay.  Leonard had not given him time to protest, had simply swept him along like it was natural to drag a reluctant companion to an unknown destination, and perhaps it was.  Human rituals were still lost upon him, at times, and Spock had made a note to ask his mother her opinion at a future date.  Another thirty minutes, and Leonard’s plans had become apparent, with the two men standing bright eyed before the glittering display of gold and diamonds. Quietly, obviously overwhelmed, Leonard had spat out his request and asked for assistance, as he supplied the information that he planned on proposing to Nyota, after two years of dating.

-

“I would inquire if you were paying attention still, but to ignore me would be a display of atrocious etiquette on your part. Furthermore, I know first-hand that you would never dare to ignore me, for Lady Amanda has raised you better, so I shall not repeat the question.”

Lips quirking, the leafy greens of Spock’s salad lay limp in his bowl, as he ignored them in favor of the voice coming from his PADD.  Across from him, Nyota sat with her legs crossed under her and a dripping chicken salad sandwich caught between her fingers.  Her lipstick was a bright, glittering fuchsia, today, that winked in the sun, while her hair was tangled up upon her head in an ornate twist that looked to have taken her hours.  It was a farce, for he could see the single stick that had been shoved in to hold the style in place. And, upon further quiet inspection, it appeared to be the pen that she had only minutes ago complained about losing.

“You must pardon me, T’Pring, for I find that I am intrigued to distraction by the complexities of human interactions and their desire for intimate secrecy.”

Her mouth was stern, her cheeks sharp, but her pale brown eyes were bright with a familiar kind of laughter. There were small lines of stress around her mouth, slight discoloration beneath her eyes, and his own had narrowed upon the first sight of her. Her latest project, analyzing how the monolayer curvature within the biomembrane lipids of various species was affected during trans-beam base teleportation, offered her a challenge; hours upon hours of research and experimentation. He knew T’Pring almost as well as he knew himself and, just the same, Spock knew how she displayed attributes often found distasteful by her pure Vulcan heritage, becoming lost within her work to the point that her physicality suffered.

There was a curious kind of delight on her features, subtle as it was, and Spock found amusement from the sight of her.

“Such a distraction is excusable; I cannot fault you for your fascination.  I, myself, was greatly fascinated by the recorded conversation that you forwarded to me, and must admit that I felt a degree of apprehension at certain points.  However, I find that I am quite pleased with the results that the experience has yielded, and I trust that you will inform me if anything offensive occurs?”

“Of course.”

Across from him, Nyota looked up from her meal, a smear of it across her cheek and a bright light in her eyes. Teasing, his mind supplied, just as quickly as she showed the tip of her tongue to him in a childish display. More comfortable with himself than he would have been mere months prior, Spock narrowed his eyes at her before returning the action in kind. Shock caused her mouth to drop open, and the eyes that watched him were wide within her face, as if she could not believe what he had done.

“Just the same, I trust that you have kept Stonn in an agreeable position?” 

It had been some time since he had seen his Vulcan companions, not in person since their graduation from their primary education. The incident in their childhood, the words spoken by Stelen against Spock and his mother, challenging the honor of his father, had resulted in Stonn silencing his brother himself, ashamed of his younger sibling’s actions and lack of respect. The friendship between the two had been instantaneous then, a companionship that had filled his mother with amusement, and T’Pring had joined their ranks not long after.

“He meets specifications, though he appears to be lacking in key departments such as patience and resilience.”

Lifting one brow, his lips pursed, and Spock stared at his childhood friend in thought for a moment before speaking slowly.

“T’Pring, should I be concerned for his well-being?”

A quiet rush of air left her, a delicate laugh that she masked perfectly, but the tilt to her lips gave her away. Dark brown hair loose about her shoulders, she gave a slight turn of her head, and regarded him with in cool calculation. It didn’t last long, for a most un-Vulcan shrug flowed through one shoulder, though the action was still a graceful thing.

“Negative.  He is in prime physical condition, as he has been since you left him in my care four point eight years ago.”

“ _Care_ is a questionable term, T’Pring, for you forget that I was once betrothed to you.”

Her eyes narrowed on him, holding him there for a moment, and then the scene of her lab behind her slid sideways. At the table beside her, Stonn had lost himself in sleep, and would have been embarrassed with his own actions.  Instead of desiring to chastise him though, Spock simply gave a quiet snort, another sound that drew Nyota’s attention.

“He is sleeping.”

“Indeed.  He has been for quite some time now. As I assured you, I am aware that his physical wellbeing is well within normal parameters.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught the way that Nyota’s eyebrows had risen, and Spock angled the PADD slightly so that she may see the image herself.  In response, a quiet peel of laughter pulled from within her chest, and she waved a hand in front of her face, as if to disperse the sound.

“I do not think you are, T’Pring; your husband is asleep in your lab, and I surmise that there is a ninety-eight percent chance that he has already begun to drool on your equipment, due to his current position.”

“I have kept his physical status as close to acceptable as possible; I made no promises upon his mental status, Spock.”

-

Stomach pleasantly full and his satchel slung over his chest, Spock had forgone a beverage for himself. Instead, he had decided to spoil Jim, subjecting himself to stand in line for ten minutes to place an order for an extra-large ‘chocolate cherry delight’ milkshake, with extra whipped cream.  It all floated in the plastic cup that he held, and the lid did nothing to hide the disconcerting way that some of the cream threatened to spill over the top.

Campus was filled with the buzz of activity as they let out from afternoon classes, and he couldn’t have picked a busier time to pay his boyfriend a social call. The quad was full of students, either lounging about in the damp grass or puttering to class, and he found that he had neither the time nor the patience to deal with them.

Pace brisk, he was pulled to a halt by a hand on his sleeve, and Spock turned with a sharp expression.

Staring back at him was a face that he could have lived without encountering ever again, and the bubble of his temper started up once more within his blood. Features sharp and dirty, in a way that could never be made clean, the man was nearly as tall as he, though his shoulders were broader, his arms thicker. Sharp lines and jagged corners made up the tattoos on either side of his face, and thin lips were pulled into a sneer, a mockery of something that could have been a friendly smile on any other face.

Hackles rising, a sort of exasperated disgust rippled through him, and Spock watched the other man with a cool gaze.

 “Spock, been meaning to find you.”

His words were just as sharp as the lines upon his face, and the points of his ears were flushed under the warmth of the spring sunlight.  A black case was balanced over one shoulder, without any care for the musical instrument that lay within, and his thick fingers grasped the handle of it loosely.  It would fall soon, Spock knew, and it was with a harsh sort of malice that he hoped the instrument cracked.

“I do not believe we have anything to discuss, Nero.”

The Romulan grinned, his teeth straight and white, the cut of his lips into his cheeks a dark thing. There was a depraved amusement about him, from the black marks upon his hairless skin to his black eyes, and Spock found himself wishing to move on. There was no point though, for Nero’s fingers were curled tight within the fabric of his sleeve, and he knew how well their strength was matched.

Furthermore, there would be no point in causing a scene.

“Ah, see, you’ve missed something.  I’m real concerned Spock, been hearing things.”

The grasp on his arm was tight and, had he been human, Spock would have been concerned with the possibility of bruising.  As it was, there was no current reason to worry and, instead, he narrowed his eyes at his unwanted companion. The man was a menace, nothing more, and it seemed that he had to remind himself of this once again.

“I must say that I am not surprised at your symptoms, though it would perhaps be in your best interest to receive medical attention, if you find that your mental faculties are failing you. I am a pianist, not a doctor, Nero, and I am in no position to offer you assistance.”

The words slid, smoothly sarcastic, from between his lips, and they felt good. The insult within them was a subtle thing, but it was clear to anyone who knew what to listen for.  And Nero knew, from the flush along his cheeks to the tightening of his grip, and it was then that Spock began to worry about bruising.

Jim’s milkshake was going to melt.

The man bared his teeth in a jest of a grin, and it was a sinister, feral thing at best, and the laugh he gave was just the same.  A cackling sound, it crackled in the air and seemed to have crawled, broken and sharp, from the shattered glass mine that lay within the man’s body.  It set something uneasy alight in his core, and Spock’s grip tightened on the cup that he held. The plastic protested quietly, and his dark eyes held the other man’s, forcing himself to stay still under the scrutiny of that mad light.

“Funny man you are, Spock, real funny man.  Not what I meant though, I don’t mind them voices all too much. Nah, see, I been hearin’ things, because I’ve got friends, yaknow?”

“Shocking.”

The grip tightened, and his grin stretched wider, and Spock watched as Nero’s tongue worked within his mouth.

“See Spock, my friends like to talk, chatty little gossips, but you probably know that yourself.  Real friend with the ladies, aren’t cha?”

“If you would get to the point, Nero, I have prior obligations that demand my attention.”

The Romulan released him, holding up the very same hand in an open-palmed sort of surrender.  It was all a tragic mockery, and the very notion of it made him burn with distaste and his skin crawl from their points of almost-contact.  He could feel it even through his shirt, the warmth that the man’s touch had left behind, and he burned to scrub it off of his skin

“’Course Spock, you’re a busy man after all.  Just thought I’d let you know that I’m real sorry ‘bout what happened to your pretty little boy. Orions are such nasty, handsy bastards, aren’t they?”

A sharp terror cut into his mind, and his grip upon the plastic cup tightened. With a cracking sound, it threatened to rupture, but it was with that terror and a swirling, primal sort of anger that he lunged forward.  Reaching out, fingers grasping, his lips pulled back and Spock’s breath left him in a sharp snarl.

Made gleeful by the turn of events, from the grin on his face to the laugh upon his lips, Nero danced out of his grasp with a little jig, though.

“Ah, lookit you so angry, Spock, no need to get so hasty.  Just bein’ a good person, showing that I care and all. I mean, it’d be such a shame if something happened to Jimmy, he’s such a pretty little thing.”

Nero was out of reach of his grasp and not only that, but there were still other students about.  Students who had personal PADDs, which carried cameras, and that was without the assistance of the security cameras that stretched across campus.  It would be counterproductive to start a disturbance, but Spock burned.  The desire was there, to dig his fingers into the other man’s chest, to pull out his heart and to squeeze the air from his lungs with hard fists.

Instead, he turned on his heel, giving Nero his back in a blatant, perilous show of disrespect, and his pace was twice what it had been.  It was only the last of his control that kept him from breaking into a run, but Spock made quick time of crossing what remained of campus, of taking the stairs into the symphony house. The air was quiet and cool against his skin, but it only agitated him further, and it was with a barely restrained violence that he pressed at the door until it opened.

Upon the stage Jim and Gaila sat, face to face and engrossed in their work with a childish delight and a bright eyed sort of ambition. Striding down the ramp, Spock set the cup down with a loud click, and clambered up onto the stage beside them. At any other time, he would have taken the opportunity to enjoy the scene that they created.  Jim’s fingers drew the bow carefully across the belly of the viola, and Gaila’s voice was a softly swirling thing as she sang the lyrics from the PADD held within her hands.

Instead though, he practically crawled forward, and he must have looked as rattled as he felt, because Gaila stopped her singing to stare at him. Her pouty, soft pink painted mouth was open wide, and the last word had tied on her tongue while she watched him.  Jim barely had a moment to set his instrument down, confused by the silence, before his hands were upon his mate.  Brushing across his shoulders, Spock felt it as Jim startled at the contact, but he didn’t allow himself to pause until he had checked every available inch of skin.

“Spock?”

“Jim, do you know of a Romulan called Nero?”

His heart was thundering within his ears, and that scared frenzy had yet to let him calm. He suspected that he wouldn’t be calm for quite some time now, and he hastily rucked up Jim’s shirt, smoothing his fingers across the human’s ribs and turning him, inspecting for any sign that Nero had touched his beloved. There was nothing though, absolutely nothing to be found, and he could feel his lover starting to quake beneath his touch.

“No, I don’t know anyone by that name, I’ve neve- Spock, the fuck is wrong?”

His own hands were trembling, he realized, as he let Jim grasp them within his own. The human tried to hold him steady, and Spock’s tongue was thick, swollen from where his teeth ground into the flesh of it. The fear and the anger were both growing into something else, something that he couldn’t recognize or name, and Spock felt himself shiver with the emotion of it.

“I believe I know who is responsible for your attack, Jim.”


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this took a little bit, but yo, college is a thing. I've got papers and projects, and I'm a junior so upper level lecture halls, and just ugh. It's sad when the bright moment in my college career is that I get to pick up my new glasses tomorrow. Oh well, can't ask for much. I've been informed not to apologize too much for the delay, so I'll just say I'm sorry once and be done. Apart from that, I hope all of you enjoy this chapter, because I do, and guess what: We only have one chapter left to go!

These were not the sort of circumstances he had envisioned, when he had foreseen overseeing a conversation between his father and his intended.  He had assumed that there would be tension, that there would be anger and frustration, that Jim would be stiff in his posture for once, and that Sarek would be tight lipped and sour faced, unamused with his son’s choice and altogether displeased.

It would be fitting then, with all of the surprises that had been served to him lately, that what he expected was not what he got.

 _Spock_ was the one who sat stiff and straight in his chair, though that was nothing strange in the presence of another Vulcan.  Even through a screen, the situation called for his complete attention, and his father quietly demanded it from where he sat.  There were no other similarities to his imagined scenario though, for everything else seemed to be out of his hands and his control, and Spock felt himself flounder for a moment.   Jim had settled down to lean against him, with his muscles lax and his body at ease.  There was no tension in the golden man’s shoulders, no unease in the lines of his forearms and, instead, his quick fingers played idly with a loose thread in the fabric of his pants.  Jim didn’t seem bothered in the slightest by the less than presentable picture he made, and it was startling to realize that even his father did not appear to care. The look upon Sarek’s face was impossible to mistake, though it was rare to ever see aimed at anyone but his mother and, only recently, at himself.

There was a faint smile on the Vulcan features, an uptick to his severe lips and less of a furrow between his sharp brows.  It relaxed everything about him, from the cut of his hair to the set of his jaw, and even the Ta’al that had been offered to them when the connection had gone through seemed less stiff.  It was stranger still, when Jim’s greeting was received so readily, so lightly.

“Hey, Sarek.”

“Greetings, James.  I will admit that I am satisfied to see you in good health, and would inquire of you as to your symphonic mission, but my son appears rather overwrought.  I assume that this is not then a social call, and that the both of you require my presence for another reason?”

There was a subtle air of companionship between the two of them, a light thing that was filled as much with amusement as it was with understanding, and he could feel the content that seeped from Jim through their latched hands.  Strange, for his beloved to be so at ease with the daunting presence that Spock had always considered his father to be.  It gave him a feeling of ease he hadn’t known that he needed, to see them so enthused with one another, although part of Spock feared for his own mental wellbeing when the time came for Jim and his mother to become acquainted.

“I’m just here to look pretty; you’ll have to talk to him about the rest.”

Lips curling, the display of emotion was obvious and Spock’s delight was no doubt visible to his father, but Spock found he did not mind.  Instead, he turned his head, brushing his nose against the curve of Jim’s temple, content despite the racket of unsettled emotion that warred still within him.

“Indeed, Jim, you are quite ‘pretty’ though that is not the only reason I desire to keep you and pleasure you so.”

A delicate pink flush washed over Jim’s skin then, and Spock found happiness in it, even as he turned back to face his father.

“You are correct in your assumption, Father, and I apologize if this has displeased you.  I will leave you with Jim’s contact details, if he has not done so himself already, so that the two of you may… converse at another time.  Currently, I have been given information in relation to the attack perpetrated upon Jim that troubles me greatly and has caused us much emotional distress.”

The indulgent ease that his father had exhibited fell away then, lost in the way that his back straightened and the bones in his jaw shifted subtly and tautened, under thin, mint tinted skin.  The Vulcan’s sharp gaze flickered to Jim, accessing Spock’s intended with a quick sweep, before landing once more upon his son.  Spock sat straighter, tightening his grip on Jim’s fingers just enough to remind himself that the other was still there, that he was safe.

“Explain yourself, _Sa-fu_.”

The words were sharp on his tongue and they fell free, uncontrolled as unswallowed water, as they spilled from his lips.

“Earlier today, I experienced an altercation between myself and the Romulan student known as Nero.  Since my arrival on Earth, Nero has come across as a sinister being with ulterior motives that I have not been able to discern for myself.  He stopped me on my way to meet with Jim, and began a conversation by disclosing information that he should have had no prior knowledge of, relating to Jim’s attack, before proceeding to question his physical well being.  He knew the cultural orientation of Jim’s attackers, and repeatedly brought to my attention that he has ‘friends’ while also telling me that he had been ‘hearing things’ as of late.”

Jim stirred against him, then, and the fingers wrapped in his own fluttered as the human moved.  Tipping his body to the side, his head turned, and this time those bright blue eyes found his own with an eerie ease that raised the skin on Spock’s arms: the thin, dark hairs there prickling with the tension he felt.  His mate’s gaze was beautiful, even if Jim couldn’t truly see him, and he watched as the other man blinked rapidly in concern.

“Spock?”

“I have been given reason to believe that Nero is behind the attack against Jim, as well as the disappearances of other Terran individuals in San Francisco over the past five years.”

His father’s lips were pressed together, a thin line of flesh, and Spock longed to see that faint smile in its rarity once more.  Now was not the time though and instead, Spock sat stiff, under Jim’s wide eyed gaze and his father’s cool assessment.  After a moment, Sarek gave a faint nod, and his hands folded before him on the desk.

“James, do you love my son?”

Startled, Jim jerked against him, fingers tightening to the point of near pain around his own.  His bright eyes swung round, trying and failing to find the terminal screen, and the emotions that seeped through their connection were bright, pulsing beats of warmth.  Compassion, confusion, love and apprehension; all swirled within themselves into a dizzying tidal pool that ebbed and flowed.

“I don’t understand why this is relevant?”   Jim’s voice was a whisper, quiet and startled, and his fingers twisted the threads he had caught.

“Answer the question, James.”

Jim blushed, a pink warmth spreading across his golden skin, and the fingers that held Spock’s trembled, short nails tapping against the backs of his knuckles.  He didn’t have a chance to hold his breath though, or feel apprehension of his own, because Jim pushed on, the round curves of his ears taking on the appealing rush of color as well.

“Of course I do, what kind of question is that?  You can’t just ask somebody if they love someone!  I mean, shit, I’m sleeping with him and he’s kind of killed people for me so I’d be worried about my mentality if I _didn’t_ love him?  Bones is kind of already worried about my mental state, but that’s a different stor-  I’m going to just stop now.   _Yes_ , I love your son; I would like to one day marry your son and have your son’s partial Vulcan babies if science allows because, ya know, science and sex and babies.”  One of his hands waved in the air, thin fingers dancing, as if the motion could encompass the entire berth of the conversation. 

His own lips threatened to morph into a grin, to match the embarrassed one that Jim now seemed intent to rub off onto his neck, but Spock kept his face as neutral as he could, eyes fixed on his father.  Sarek seemed amused, though whether it was from the current situation or private thought, Spock could not know.

“Then it is apparent that it would be in the best interest of both parties if you were to bond.”

“Father, I find that I am not sure what this would solve-”

Jim tugged at his hand, hard enough to grab Spock’s attention, and he turned with the hum of the other man’s nerves crawling through his fingers to tighten his throat.  Jim’s shoulders had hunched up, the rounded points pressed close to his flushed ears, and his legs had twined themselves together tightly.

“Jim?”

“I, uh, I wouldn’t mind that, actually.”

“Jim, a Vulcan bond is not something to be taken lightly.  They are permanent, irreversible, and as such will link your mind with Spock’s, if you do choose to continue.  There is no privacy or secrecy, when one is bonded with a Vulcan, and we take the health and happiness of our mates earnestly.”

His father’s words didn’t seem to have a negative effect though, and Spock felt his eyes widening as he gazed down at the hesitant, blind human.  Jim’s grin was shy in a way that Spock had never seen before, and the flutter of emotions that he felt echoing through their contact made his heart burn hot in his side.

“I know, and I’d… I’m fine with that, if Spock wants me.”

Sarek seemed to take that as his answer, for his fingers clicked away at something off screen.  Spock didn’t turn though, gaze intent on Jim, with his shy flush and his small smile, his own heart thundering.  His father’s voice seemed muffled to his own ears, for he was focused on Jim’s image, the soft sound of his breathing and the way that his tongue nervously slicked his full lips.

“Spock, I will arrange for T’Pau to accompany your mother, and I, on our trip at the end of the month.  Your mother would have rather we kept it a surprise, though I find that I do not understand her sentiment regarding such things.  The bonding will proceed in twenty days’ time.   Spock, I implore that you recall the necessity to neutralize your terminal and end the conversation with me before partaking in intercourse with James.  Live long and prosper.” 

The screen flickered out, dropping back to its home screen as the call was lost, though the familiar image of his own startled face caught between the wide grins of Nyota and Gaila was ignored.  Instead, his dark gaze swept over Jim and caught the slight tremble that traveled through the other man’s body.  He had pulled his hands back, leaving Spock’s own fingers cold, and the human’s digits knotted in on themselves with what he recognized as nervous tension.

“Jim.”

“I guess I kind of jumped the gun there, huh?  Sorry if that made you uncomfortable, or if you don’t want- I mean, I’d get it, if you didn’t want that.  I’ve just never really felt this way before, and I haven’t actually been with anybody else, but I know what it’s like to love somebody, I think, because I love you, and I just-“

Jim’s lips were still trying to move, pressed against his own and sleek from the way Jim’s tongue had wet them moments before.  One of Spock’s hands smacked at the side of the terminal screen, causing it to go dark.  Fingers already cupping Jim’s face, he held the other man there for a moment before straightening, surging to his feet.  His chair skidded out from under him and then Jim was gasping for air; his body flushing and his chest rising in a sharp series of motions, as Spock reached for him, pulling the other male roughly out of his chair, and Jim let out a sharp sound.

His hands grappled at Spock’s shoulders, the Vulcan’s hands sweeping down to pull Jim up, to clutch at the backs of his thighs.  The skin there was warm, even through the soft white material of the human’s harem pants, and Spock braced his hands under the sweet curve of Jim’s ass.  His mate’s eyes were wide, the blue of them bright as they flickered wildly, and his fingertips were sharp points in Spock’s shoulders.

“Holy _fuck_ , what got into you?”

“I find it more arousing than I would have anticipated, to hear you admit to my father that you wish to bond with me.”

He had wrapped Jim’s legs around his own waist, and now Spock reveled in the way that he could easily handle his lover, holding him fast against his own body.  Jim clung to him with the same desire, and he could feel the thrill of that as it coursed through the other man’s system.  A quiet moan spilled from Jim’s chapped lips, but he couldn’t tell if the desire that caused it was Jim’s or his own.

“I do, I’ll marry you, any cultural way you want.  Fuck, I’ll even go through a Za-Xinju insectoid mating ritual if you want, although I don’t think I can bend that wa- _ah_!“

His teeth caught at the smooth flesh of Jim’s neck, scraping along the tense line of his jugular.  Jim moaned once more, a high, keening sound that danced loudly in the air, and his head tipped back.  One hand fisted in his black hair, and Spock let out a sound of his own; a low, rumbling growl that made itself known around the way he worried Jim’s sensitive skin between his teeth.

“Shut up, Jim.”

-

The rest of the month had flown by quickly, and it wasn’t until the day was almost upon him that Spock recalled the visit from his parents and grandmother.  He had been preoccupied, with homework and helping Jim with his project; spending time with his friends and keeping Jim as high on dopamine as he could manage.  The morning of their arrival had found him feeling distressingly disorganized, and Spock had left Jim in his home with a quick kiss and a plea that he be presentable for company within the hour.

Standing in the docking area for incoming shuttles, Spock felt a type of nervousness that he hadn’t experienced since he was a child.

It had been some time since he had seen his parents in person, one month short of a Terran year, and even longer since he had seen them in what he considered his home environment.  Earth belonged to him too, now, in terms of inheritance from his Human mother, with its forests and its oceans; streets that he knew and a university that he considered his own.  It was a territorial thing, impressed into him much like the marks from teeth, fingers and tongue that he left on Jim’s soft, golden skin, yet Spock saw no reason to correct that impression.

There was a strangeness, though, in having his parents within what he considered his territory, once more, and he was sure his mother woul-

“Spock!”

His mother was behaving in a fashion very unbecoming to her Vulcan citizenship.  Russet hair unbound, it fell in a tangle of loose strands that bounced with her movements.  Her pale cheeks were flushed a healthy pink, her dark eyes bright, and that was a wide smile on her slender face as she ran to him, simple green dress fluttering with her movements.

Further behind her, following at a more sedate pace, were his father and grandmother, watching as Spock threw his arms out to catch his mother.

She felt slight against him, and the front of one of her shoes caught painfully against the underside of his kneecap, but Spock clutched her all the more tightly.  It had been the same ever since he was young, the way he allowed himself close physical contact with his mother, and Amanda had readily embraced it, just as she embraced him now.  Her hair was soft where it tickled under his nose, her scent dry and sweet like Vulcan fruit, and her thin arms were tight around his throat as she hugged him.

Closing his eyes, holding her as closely as he could, Spock took a deep breath, lips tugging up into a subtle smile that he hid within her hair.  He was only given a moment though, because she wriggled against him, demanding to be put on the ground once more and, as soon as her feet touched, he obligingly angled his face down for inspection.  Her fingertips fluttered across his cheeks, his forehead and chin, brushing at his hair and checking for blemishes that didn’t actually exist, and he allowed it with a soft sigh.

“Mother, I have felt your absence greatly these last few months.”

Her comely face lit up then; her smile brightened, her eyes crinkled and her fingers patted against his shoulders, smoothing away wrinkles in his shirt that didn’t exist.  Spock stayed still as his mother did as she pleased, and Amanda took comfort from the contact between them as readily as he himself did.  It was only when the other two travelers approached that she pulled back, keeping her hands to herself in a show of control that he found he prided himself upon.

“Father, T’Pau; I am honored that you have journeyed to assist me, and my intended, in our time of need.”

His grandmother was as regal as he remembered; her face a pattern of severe lines and her dark eyes sharp.  Her hair was pulled back into a harsh, ornate twist of braids and, while she was far shorter than he, Spock felt like the infant that he had once been, in her presence.  She dipped her head to him though, her gnarled fingers forming the Ta’al in greeting, though her face remained as impassive as he had ever seen it.

“The honor is mine.  I have been informed that time is of the essence, and request an introduction to the young James.”

Straightening, Amanda pressed to his side for a minute before swaying away to stand beside her husband, ever the dutiful wife.  There was a soft smile on her face, though, and through their sleeves Spock could see the tips of his parents’ fingers tangling against one another.  He gave his elder a nod in response before turning on his heel, their luggage having already been delivered to his hovercar, to guide them out of the shuttle dock.

“The temperature seems quite cold; I trust you are in good health?”

His father’s tone was exactly the same as ever, with or without the static of a terminal between them, and Spock let the cool tones wash over him as he sat in the driver’s seat of the hovercar.  The route was programmed into the autodrive within the car’s sensors, and he relaxed back into the seat, letting the mechanics do the work.

“As of late, I find it most agreeable.  The temperature is quite mild for this time of year, though we saw snow over the winter months and it has warmed considerably since then.”

Beside him, T’Pau looked almost appalled, with her thin eyebrows rising and her mouth a tight, flat line.  His mother giggled though, a soft pleased sound from his childhood that he would have recognized anywhere.  He could feel her approval through their maternal bond, something that she never knowingly broadcast through, but Spock found that he welcomed the familiar, gentle intrusion that he had always known as her.  

“He doesn’t live in Toronto, Sarek; trust me, you don’t need to worry about him getting cold.  California should be just right for him.”

Lips ticking up, Spock smothered the expression, mindful of the elder beside him even as the hovercar pulled to a gentle halt, the engine thrumming silently beneath his body.  The garage of the apartment complex was brightly lit, and the valet stood within the shaded entrance, his red and black uniform crisp and his face soft.  There was recognition there, on his features, as Spock eased himself out of the driver’s seat, and the other man bowed his head.

“Good morning, Mr Spock.  Would you like for your guests’ luggage to be taken to your unit?”

“If you could have it delivered to the Vulcan Embassy, actually, it would be most appreciated.”

His mother’s voice was soft, for she was quicker to answer than his father could have been, and Spock could see the smile that she gave the man from over the top of the car.  He looked flustered by it, the young human male of nineteen, with a deep blush rising from under his shirt collar and his eyes widening.  He nodded though, hurrying back into the booth before another word could be said, and his mother’s laughter was caught by his father’s hand.

“Wife,”

“Sarek, I didn’t mean to embarrass the boy, I was just taking care of it.”

“ _Amanda_.”

Sarek’s voice was filled with exasperation then, low tones drawn out in a hint of a sigh that he wouldn’t let free.  Shaking his head minutely, Spock turned his attention back to T’Pau.  The Elder was gone though, away from the car to stand behind the closing doors of the elevator with her hands crossed pristinely before her.  Beside her stood the wide eyed valet, a look of horror on his features that no doubt matched Spock’s own as the doors shut.

“I must implore that we hurry, as I fear the consequences of leaving T’Pau alone with Jim for any length of time.”

_“What?”_

His mother’s voice echoed in his ears, and there was a tight tick of confusion to the syllables that made them seem sharp in the cool air.  His strides were long, a worried heat spreading across his skin that he found he couldn’t control, and Spock stopped before the elevator to tap a finger against the call button.  It beeped at him in reply, a crisp chirping sound that echoed in the air, but there was no other response from it.  Impatient, body tight, Spock pressed it a second time and then a third, feeling his brows pull down while his heart started to beat faster within his side.

“Spock, sweetie, you need to be patient.”  His mother’s words were soothing, gentle things washing over him in the wake of his sudden childish anxiety, and he closed his eyes to bathe in them.  “Everything will be fine.  T’Pau won’t do anything to scare Jim.”

Lips taut, Spock turned his head to stare at his mother, dark eyes bright behind his lashes.  Her own face was wide eyed, mouth slightly parted and her brows drawn down in concern, a look that he recognized well from his childhood.  His father, on the other hand, stood tall behind her, a quiet, calm look of understanding upon his features.

 “It is not _Jim_ that Spock fears for, wife.” 

The elevator gave a pleasant chirp as its doors opened, drowning out the sound of shock that his mother made.  The turbolift ride that followed didn’t seem fast enough, and Spock felt an itch crawl across his skin.  Staring at the doors in front of him, he felt the urge to tap his foot, barely holding his composure when they opened before him.  The hallway was empty, doors to the apartments around his shut and the valet nowhere in sight.

Tongue heavy in the cradle of his jaw, he couldn’t find words, nor could he control the fine tremble of unease that had settled within his hands.  There was no way of knowing what was being said within the apartment, though, and Spock held his hand stiff as the locking system scanned his genetic print.  The door unlocked with a quiet _click_ and Jim’s voice floated from inside the lit space.

“-that much of a problem, I’m used to it at this point.  Been getting around like this since I was a kid, so I don’t mind.”

“Do you not grieve for the things you can no longer experience?”

T’Pau was already seated, obviously comfortable on his couch, as indicated in the way that there was a faint softening along the line of her shoulders, and her dark eyes were brightly focused on his Jim.  Less rumpled than he had been when Spock had left, Jim sat with an easy grin on his face, his hair pulled back into a loose tail that did little to hide the golden waves.  The pants that he wore were his own, a dark pair of jeans that were old and worn soft from abuse; the sweater, however, was one of Spock’s, made by his mother’s delicate hands, and it hung loose and large over his slim frame.  She recognized the deep, carmine colored lace knit, he realised, for he saw her fingers flex out of the corner of his eye, and he knew she would be wearing a soft, startled smile had he looked in her direction.

Instead, Spock was caught up in the way that Jim smiled, the quiet laugh that fell from his lips when he shook his head.

“I honestly don’t remember seeing.  I couldn’t tell you that I remember what color things are, or if they have a pattern, and I’ll never be able to drive, as far as the government cares.  It would suck and it would make me angry, if I let it, but I can’t do that; because I can still enjoy the things I do, and I can still play my music.  I’ve got friends who keep me company, challenges that make me happy, and I’ve got Spock.”

Jim’s words were soft, private things that were meant for T’Pau and yet, while his grandmother heard them, so did the rest of the audience that apparently went unnoticed.  Jim’s shoulders hadn’t tensed up, his body hadn’t gone to attention and, instead, they were given the chance to listen to words that even Spock had never heard.  It was a private moment, burning in its quiet, intimate nature, and he felt as if he were trespassing within his own home because of it.

“How does my grandson matter to you, when you cannot see?  Our people are not known for our compassion; he has no kindness to offer you, given your disadvantage. ” 

His mate’s hands were folded loosely in his lap and one leg was lifted, the arch of his foot pressed delicately to the inside of his knee.  Sitting there, Jim looked small, but his limbs were long, and there was a strength in them that Spock knew the feel of; the _taste_.  His smile was brilliant, even as his eyes stared vaguely past the Vulcan Matriarch.

“Because I don’t need to see him to know he’s beautiful.  He’s kind, and he’s funny, and he looks out for me even when I don’t really need him to.  He cares about his family, and he’s going out of his way to embrace his human side so he can know himself better.  It would be nice, to be able to see him, but I don’t have to see him to know I love him.”

Quietly, his mother cleared her throat behind him, and Spock watched as the tension came then.  A slight stiffening, a flush of color to the arches of his cheeks, Jim’s bright gaze swept uselessly across the room, but he searched all the same.  Staggering to his feet, the smile on his face was broad, a bright thing that warred against the shyness in his tone and the way that one hand scratched at the back of his head. 

“Ah, sorry, I didn’t hear the rest of you come in.  T’Pau sort of snuck up on me.”

Amanda stepped forward, slipping past her son where he stood with his hands loose at his sides, his heart still doing a wild dance behind his ribs.  She brushed a hand across his shoulder as she went, and Spock felt her amusement, but also her approval, and let out the breath that he hadn’t known he held.  Still, his eyes stayed on Jim, standing flushed with embarrassment and bare footed as if he belonged, as safe and dry as Spock could keep him, within his home.

“That’s quite alright, sweetheart.  I learned early on that Vulcans are sneaky things, even if you can see them.  These men have a horrible habit of not announcing their presence until they’re right on top of you.  I’m Spock’s mother, Amanda, but you probably know me as-“

“Mrs Grayson.  I, yeah, you… you’re kind of a legend.  I idolized you, growing up, you actually inspired me to pick up the viola, and I ju - I’m just making a fool of myself already.  Okay, so… _Hi_ , Mrs Grayson, it’s a pleasure to finally meet you.  I’m James Kirk.”

-

They were bonded in the garden of the Vulcan Embassy, a request that Jim had shyly made when the logistics were being put into place.  His mother had given Sarek no time to question Jim’s choice, Amanda giving the human a smile that had gone unnoticed, and Spock had felt relief.  Jim would be happy with the proceedings of their union, and he found that _that_ was all that mattered.

A small gathering of their friends had been allowed to attend; Leonard, Nyota, Gaila and Scotty were familiar faces where they stood, dressed for the occasion.  Sulu and Chekov had been new, people that he hadn’t met but once, but Jim had requested their presence and it only seemed fair to indulge him, for T’Pring and Stonn watched from the holoscreen.

There had been no room for nerves, not when Jim knelt with him, facing him, each with one of their hands joined, fingers touching gently.  T’Pau stood regal and severe, as was her right and, until recently, it was the only way he had ever known his grandmother to be.  Her mind touched theirs, joining them to oversee their bonding, and the gasp that left her lips was unfettered.

“You share a T’hy’la bond.”

The words resonated through the room and appeared to sweep up the witnesses with their presence, from his mother’s gasp to the widening of Stonn’s eyes, but Spock ignored them instead for Jim.  His robes were simple, dark fabric in Vulcan cut, and they flowed on his figure, hiding him from view though they had made it seem as if he had walked on air when they moved to kneel.  His mind was dancing with warmth against Spock’s own, golden and glistening, beckoning in the sweetly singing way that it had the first time they had touched.  

His body trembled, the finer points of his control gone, lost to the gentle breeze in the wake of his emotions.  T’Pau spoke the ritual words, crisp Vulcan phrases that fell from her lips, and it was with a start that Spock saw his Jim silently mouthing along with her.  An incandescent wave moved through him then, a crest of emotions and thoughts that were not his own, as their minds melded, linking in the marital bond that he had never believed he would experience.

Eyes heavy, mind alive, Spock let out a breath on the soft sigh of his bondmate’s name, feeling the embrace of another mind against his own; it was beautiful.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I'm sorry to tell all of you that this part of the journey has come to an end! Alas, I shall miss you, but I hope you'll all still hang around my profile, for updates and all that nice stuff. Because I do have other stories, and I would love for all of you to see the other things I've written and tell me what you think? Anywho, I love all of you! And I just wanted to thank all of you for staying with me through this, you're all so wonderful!

_At all times, Jim’s mind was brilliant.  The presence of the other man was forever golden, alive with energy even in sleep, and so multi-faceted that Spock found himself stumbling in Jim’s wake from time to time.  While he had anticipated, privately, how perfect Jim would be as a bondmate, he had never paused to think of how it would be to have such a constant connection to his golden mind._

_It was a life-altering experience, the sensations that he felt echoing in his mind, when they were not his own.  Jim was limitless in his joy, his sharp wit and the consuming feeling of his love.  Such emotions were as bright as the man himself and the constant, singing thrum of them within his own mind often left Spock breathless in response.  Two months was not long enough to accustom himself to the pool of sensations that he felt, and he found that he was no closer to being used to them than he had been the first time they had touched._

_Jim was a marvel, truly and without question, and Spock felt humbled by the gift he had been given; to share in Jim’s light._

_As much as he was a gift though, Jim had the hidden talent of being absolutely exhausting.  Mentally, he was a phenomenon; a brilliant, burning thing that devoured everything before him and left nothing more  than a scorched, ruined path in his wake.  Such tenacity would be impossible to comprehend if one hadn’t seen the inside of Jim’s mind, become intimate with the things that made him the man he was, and the universe stood no chance.  Every bit of information Jim could find was gobbled up, processed and then put away for later use, and the sheer depth of knowledge that he held within himself made Spock dizzy in response._

_With his sightless eyes and blackened feet, Jim used a sweet smile to hide the supernova that boiled away within him, until only a fraction of the heat actually simmered to the surface.  Jim was life; Jim was stained glass sunlight and shimmering pre-Surakian hymns; Jim was a tidal inferno of authority, of determination and stubborn will.  He was sunlight and fire, catching the world up in his gravity and threatening to burn it all with a sharp, sightless stare that saw more than any normal vision ever could._

_Quiet smiles and carefully tripped over words; booming laughter and fluid motions._

_Jim was beautiful, and Jim was his._

-

Jim had been a bubbling quake of carefully concealed anxiety when they had parted ways two hours before.  His knuckles had been picked raw, a nervous habit that Spock hadn’t been able to catch in time, and delicate skin had turned a wash of agitated red and tissue pink, as a result.  His smile had been a little off kilter, his eyes a little too bright, but Jim had waved him away with a quiet laugh that he just had

“- butterflies, Spock! Just be happy I ain’t pukin’ yet”.

Those words hadn’t done anything to calm him, but Spock had accepted them all the same.

He’d dressed himself in his best attire, the bespoke suit with its charcoal fabric and dark gray pinstripes that worked to give it a sense of depth.  It was a purely human ensemble, something that his father would never consider wearing, yet Spock found comfort in the way that the jacket and trousers had been contoured to fit his body.

His mother had thoroughly enjoyed the surprise, for a hand had lifted to her soft, pink tinted mouth and her painted eyes had begun to water.  With shaking fingers, she had fixed the lines of his jacket, the folds of his lapels, because even a tailored suit couldn’t pass his mother’s inspection, it seemed.  She had paused, on the bright cerulean of his tie before tapping a loving finger over the bulge of the Eldredge Knot where it lay against his throat, and there had been a knowing look in her eyes, a soft coo of sound upon her lips.

“When did you get so handsome?”

Straightening, once her inspection was through, Spock quickly conducted one of his own, analyzing the lines of her burnt orange dress.  It flattered the lines of her body, with its high, modest neckline that clenched around her throat and its long skirt that fell past her knees.  Her arms were bare, showing her soft, freckled human skin that the Vulcan sun had thus far been kind to, and her dark hair had been swept up into an elegant twist upon the back of her head. 

Giving her a soft smile, Spock lifted one shoulder in a subtle shrug, delighting in her quiet gasp.

“Due to the fact that you have always described me as such, I will have to inform you that I have always been handsome, Mother, just as you have always been beautiful.”

Her lips pressed together, eyes watering anew, Amanda’s smile became a strained thing, though no less happy.

“If you could escort me to my seat,” her voice wavered, trembling slightly with emotion that she tried to suppress.  She looked regal in her simple dress, with its soft lines folded against her pale skin.  Holding out an arm, her fingers were light where they pressed against the fabric of his jacket, and Amanda cleared her throat delicately in the wake of her maternal tears. “Your father and grandmother are already seated, and no doubt discussing the logistics of the performance.  Also, I would appreciate a program, since your father denied one at the door.”

Lips quirking, Spock let out a quiet, amused sigh in response to his mother’s words.  A quick word to one of the ushers earned him a nod from the man and a paper program in his hand; Jim had quietly given his opinion on the selection of PADD programs or old fashioned printing, claiming that the light from the PADDS would distract people.  He handed it to his mother with an elegant pass, and didn’t have to wait but a few seconds for her to notice and take it from him.

“ _Toy Soldiers_ , _Open Arms_ , _Amanda_ … Spock, these… these aren’t classical songs, at all.  These are a form of classical but it’s the wrong genre entirely; are you sure they printed off the right program for Jim?”

Her tone was incredulous, offended even, at the thought that someone had done something wrong where Jim was concerned.  Her defensive nature often came out in sharp relief where the other human was concerned, and Amanda had already proved that she intended to mother him fiercely.  Jim hadn’t minded her mothering, either, not if the pink flush to his face and the rush of affection, confusion and hesitation in response had meant anything.

“ _Africa_ , _Please Forgive Me_ , _House of the Rising Sun_ , and _Faithfully_ , as well as a number of original compositions that Jim has been creating for months.  I believe that I will use one of Jim’s favored phrases and ask that you simply trust us, Mother.  Jim knows what he is doing.”

He knew every piece by name, the time it took for them to be played, and the arrangement of instruments that would be playing each, and yet Jim had refused to allow Spock to hear the finished product.  He’d wanted it to be a surprise, and Jim had been brimming with excitement at the very notion of being finished with his project.

Leonard was in the crowd, somewhere, with Nyota looking as tranquil as ever on his arm.  He had caught a glimpse of them, the man’s brown hair sleeked back and her dancer’s body encased in a princess cut dress in a gleaming, jeweled, royal purple tone, her smiling mouth painted black.  They had only been visible for a moment, although long enough for Leonard to give him a nod and Nyota to send him a slight wave, before they had disappeared into the crowd.

Easing his mother into her seat, Spock felt a soft hint of a smile curve at his lips, and he gave her the expression willingly.

“Well, I guess I’ll just have to trust him too, then, won’t I? You know him best-“

The rest of her words were lost on him, as Spock’s world narrowed down to the sweltering upsurge of emotions, not his own, that swept through him.  Gasping, the sound felt loud against his lips, and he could only see a shadow of the concern that filled his mother’s face and… her lips were moving soundlessly.  Pain… so bright it sent a shredding impression across his skin, grinding the muscles and bruising the bones.  Fear… that turned the air he breathed into powdered glass crystals that clung bitter and bright to his throat and lungs, curdling the liquid in his stomach until it soured like rotten milk.

It was the rage that consumed him though, such a confusing feeling when it wasn’t his own.  A whirling of something blistering and bright that tore at his insides, and made his mind feel aflame in its wake. It pulsed as it set a ringing through his body and the force of it took his breath away, caused his knees to give.

Vision blurred, Spock let out a startled, pained sound, dropping into the chair beside him only with the aid of his father’s hands.

He felt it as his head lolled back, eyes rolling as far as they could into the top of his skull, and as his body burned.  The hands upon his skin were cool, ghosting things that did nothing to disguise the phantom feelings of a fist in his stomach, a harsh strike to the back of his head. The feelings were not his though, just as it wasn’t his own head that cracked into another or his own fists that crushed against flesh and bone until something broke. Neither the skin that gave way beneath his teeth nor the wet heat of blood beneath his fingers were his own, but his body ached from the specter of feeling that he could sense through the bond.

And then it was gone, just as quickly as it had begun, and Spock stared at the ceiling of the symphony house with owlish eyes.

“-ock? Spock!”

That was his father’s voice and his father’s hand sharp upon his flesh, while his mother stared on with wide eyes.  The side of his face burned from the impact of his father’s palm upon his cheek but, miraculously, the scene feared he had created had been ignored by the other occupants of the symphony hall.  There was a tremble caused by panic along his skin and Spock reached out despite it, trying to lever himself out of his seat.

“Father, Jim is-“

Sarek pushed him back though, down into the chair as if he were nothing more than a child, and there was a stern understanding upon his features that did nothing to calm the crescendo of Spock’s heartbeat within his side.

“Safe.  Jim is safe.  An individual has been removed from the premises for acts of violence, and Jim is currently back stage where he was accosted while giving the band a ‘pep talk’.  I do not know what injuries he has sustained, nor do I know the circumstances that led up to the attack, but you will not go to your bond mate.  I will not allow you to cause him further emotional distress, not when he is in such a delicate state.  Only once you have regained control of yourself will I allow you to go and find Jim.”

His father’s voice was smooth, his tone crisp, while he kept a hand on Spock’s shoulder; blocking him in, keeping him from running off as he wanted to, and Spock felt as if he were going to tremble out of his very skin.  Jim had been hurt; Jim had been struck, causing him pain and such anger that Spock had never felt before.

It was only after his breathing calmed that Sarek released him with a nod, and let him escape from the room.

The black painted door beside the stage led out into a hallway that was usually empty although, at this time, it was filled with the bodies of people holding instruments, dressed in classic black and wearing frazzled looks upon their faces. They moved out of his way, parted like the sea for a stone, though it wouldn’t have mattered if they had not. As the door swung shut behind him, Spock forced his way through them, ears buzzing and his skin fire-bright.

He paused just before the next turn though, because there was blood there on the wall, sharp and green just like his own. The copper tang of it in the air smelled bitter, where it teased his nose, and Spock’s stomach dropped to wallow between his polished Oxfords.  There were no other Vulcans on campus; he knew that just as well as he knew the layout of the tunnels before him.  There was a Romulan though, with sharp features, a grin that ate glass, and a vindictive anger that boiled under his black-stained skin.

Pressing against the closed door before him, Spock’s breath caught in his throat, and his body ached.

“T’hy’la?”

“Spock!”

There was someone standing before his mate, a doctor that blocked his beloved from sight, and Spock fought the growl that rumbled in his chest.  He could see Jim’s fingers though, reaching out for him from around the other man, and the knuckles were broken, bloody things with flecks of green upon them. Taking those fingers in his own, it was only then that his trembling stopped.

A bruise tried to bloom on the crest of Jim’s brow bone, combated by the dermal regenerator that had been slapped onto the skin to mend it before it could.  His skin was flushed, blue eyes bright in their sightless stare, and it was only when he smiled that Spock caught the green tint that stained the edges of his teeth and gums.

“Hey, I’m alright Spock, I kicked his ass!  Security says I bit his ear off, but Doc says I won’t get any blood poisoning from it.”

Jim was shaking though, as his body sang with left over anger as much as it did with relief, and there was an exhausted droop to the slope of his shoulders.  Fingers spasming, Spock pulled, heaving the human out of his seat so that he was pressed against his front.  His suit crumpled where Jim’s fingers clenched on the lapels, but he didn’t care.  Instead, Spock’s arms wrapped tight around the other man, crushing him close where he knew he could keep him safe.

“I should not have left you.”

“Spock, I’m alright! I’ve got a few bruises and a bit of a headache, but I’m better than I was last time!  Security got him, too, so Nero won’t be hurting anyone else because they won’t let him.  Fucker tried to kidnap me in a crowded room; seemed like a suicide bid to me.”

_“Jim.”_

The word ached, his body threatening to collapse in on itself from the thought.  Instead, Spock simply held the other man tight, pressing kiss after kiss to the skin of his head, his hair, calming himself as much as claiming Jim for all around them to see.

-

The soft plucking of cello strings vibrated heavy through the air as they warbled their low sounds, joined by the melancholy cry of double bass bellies, balanced on pointed legs and dark under the dim stage lighting.  Violins sang quiet, high notes to balance the lower tones that the viola cooed, while a line of five saxophones spoke of lost love and pain.

Gaila looked like an image from another time, bathed in the sepia spotlight, red curls a tumbling pile upon her head; fat strands fell loose around her shoulders, and her throat, as they framed her face.  Full lips painted the same succulent red, the color made their pout seem heavier, and they moved seductively with the words that she sang.  The black of her dress was custom tailored to flatter her figure; long where it pooled delicately at her feet, etched with scallops of glittering white lace that traced her hips, bodice, throat and arms to trail in a sheen to the tips of her fingers before it dripped down, in a seemingly free fall.

There was no mic stand in front of her, the device perhaps hidden somewhere in the curls of her hair, as the sound of her voice carried all the same. Thick, like smoke, and as tempting and soft as any crushed velvet would ever be, the audience sat transfixed; if not by the sounds of the band, then by the way her crooning voice soared and sighed.

First chair viola, Jim sat tall and proud, with his body as poised as Spock had ever seen it; so strange, to see his lover with his favored instrument, yet stationary for once.  His hand looked delicate where it clasped the bow, those fingers that danced along the neck moving with quick, practiced ease.  His head was tilted; the soft waves of his hair loosely tied back, and Spock himself had fixed his bow tie with tender care.  Jim looked regal, so perfect against the backdrop of the rest of the recital, and Spock watched him with rapt attention.

The words Gaila sang were soft, things that he had heard before and was familiar with to a certain extent, but there was something different about them now.   There was something about the way her voice carried through the rafters, lifted by the melody that the instruments sang.  It was beautiful, and the final notes sang to him more sweetly than any music Spock had heard since he was a child.

Beside him, his mother was quiet, but one dainty hand was pressed to her lips.  She trembled, with silent tears falling down her cheeks, but where her maternal bond brushed his mind, all he felt were the soft strokes of her happiness against his consciousness.  The rest of the audience had fallen under the same hush, watching the stage with the same bated breath that he himself held.

Gaila hadn’t given Jim a chance to stay seated once the production had ended, turning in a swirl of black satin and dripping white lace, and her emerald fingers had grasped at his arm.  The bow for his viola had been taken by the laughing player beside him, and Jim had been pulled to his feet.  Even from where Spock sat, he could see the way that his lover’s eyes had widened as he was pulled into the spotlight.

Gaila had gripped his hand within hers though, pulling him into a bow, and as the applause sounded, Spock had felt a grin to mirror Jim’s stretch across his own lips.

-

“I made that.”

Jim’s voice was a quiet whisper when they finally found the time to be alone, yet Spock would have been able to hear him no matter the circumstances.  After shaking so many hands, smiling at so many professors that he didn’t know, hugging Pike with a wide open expression, Jim stood dazed.  Before him, the human trembled with his joy, the force of his emotion bringing forth the salt scent of tears, though Spock saved his mate’s modesty by refraining from commenting on them.  Instead, he lifted Jim’s hand, pressing a soft kiss to his gauze wrapped knuckles, indulging himself in the healing light of his beloved’s mind.

“You did.”

Jim smiled, with a bright, wet stretch of lips and teeth as his tears fell for the first time that night.  His lips were warm against Spock’s own, his arms tightly wrapped around the curve of Spock’s shoulders.  His mind was fire-bright, a burning light that surrounded Spock as if it desired to consume him, and he gave himself up willingly to the flames.


End file.
